On Thu, 21 Sep 1995 13:11:57 -0700 (PDT) 
 Jake Hamby <jehamby@lightside.com> wrote:

 > I've been using FreeBSD on my PC for the last few weeks and loved 
 > it so much that yesterday decided to try out NetBSD on my SPARCstation 2.
 > Right now I'm doing a "make build" on NetBSD-current and I noticed that 
 > NetBSD is still using GCC 2.4.5?!?  Why hasn't it been upgraded to 2.7.0, 
 > or 2.6.3, or even 2.5.8?

Actually, NetBSD is using a fairly hacked gcc 2.4.5.

 > At any rate, after it finishes installing /usr/lib, I'm going to try 
 > compiling GCC 2.7.0 and then finish the build.  In the meantime, are 
 > there any known problems with these later version of GCC (I know 2.6.3 
 > has some optimizer bugs with -O2 on the i386), that have prevented 
 > NetBSD-current from upgrading, or is it just simple inertia?  Thanks in 
 > advance!

Well, you pretty much described why gcc hasn't been upgraded ... bugs.  
Well, that's not the only reason, I suppose, but a big one.  There are 
code-gen bugs in 2.7.0 for the m68k, for example.  Eww.

Also, upgrading the compiler is no small task ... especially considering 
that parts of our toolchain have diverged from the GNU sources 
significantly.  I'm sure we'll see a compiler upgrade when it's 
appropriate.

Ciao.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
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