Apple and gcc 2?

Apple and gcc 2?

[Michael Elizabeth Chastain]

Hi Jim, and any other Apple gdb folks,

I'm putting together a report on systems that still use gcc 2.
For the curious, the one-line list is:

  gcc 2: openbsd, netbsd, freebsd, debian, lindows, xandros, lycoris, sco

I don't know anything about Apple.  Does Apple have any gcc 2 users in the
field?

Michael C

Re: Apple and gcc 2?

[Jim Ingham]

For obscure reasons some people who build Kernel Extensions still use 
gcc 2.95, so it will still be provided with the next release of the 
Developer tools.  But we don't advise using it for anything else.

Jim

On Sep 19, 2003, at 11:16 AM, Michael Elizabeth Chastain wrote:

> Hi Jim, and any other Apple gdb folks,
>
> I'm putting together a report on systems that still use gcc 2.
> For the curious, the one-line list is:
>
>   gcc 2: openbsd, netbsd, freebsd, debian, lindows, xandros, lycoris, 
> sco
>
> I don't know anything about Apple.  Does Apple have any gcc 2 users in 
> the
> field?
>
> Michael C
>
--
Jim Ingham                                   jingham@apple.com
Developer Tools
Apple Computer

Re: Apple and gcc 2?

[Michael Elizabeth Chastain]

jim> For obscure reasons some people who build Kernel Extensions still use 
jim> gcc 2.95, so it will still be provided with the next release of the 
jim> Developer tools.  But we don't advise using it for anything else.

Okay.  Does gdb work with Kernel Extensions?

(Obviously where I'm going with this is: figuring out when gdb
can drop support for gcc 2).

Michael C

Re: Apple and gcc 2?

[Jim Ingham]

Michael,

On Sep 19, 2003, at 1:54 PM, Michael Elizabeth Chastain wrote:

> jim> For obscure reasons some people who build Kernel Extensions still 
> use
> jim> gcc 2.95, so it will still be provided with the next release of 
> the
> jim> Developer tools.  But we don't advise using it for anything else.
>
> Okay.  Does gdb work with Kernel Extensions?
>

Yes.

> (Obviously where I'm going with this is: figuring out when gdb
> can drop support for gcc 2).

I can't really speak to this.  I don't really know if/when we are going 
to drop support for compiling kext's with 2.95.

Jim
--
Jim Ingham                                   jingham@apple.com
Developer Tools
Apple Computer

Re: Apple and gcc 2?

[Stan Shebs]

Jim Ingham wrote:

> Michael,
>
> On Sep 19, 2003, at 1:54 PM, Michael Elizabeth Chastain wrote:
>
>> (Obviously where I'm going with this is: figuring out when gdb
>> can drop support for gcc 2).
>
>
> I can't really speak to this.  I don't really know if/when we are 
> going to drop support for compiling kext's with 2.95.

Apple's hacked GCC 2.95 is needed to build device drivers that will run on
Mac OS X 10.1 and 10.0 systems.  While probably there are few 10.0
systems out there, there may be several million 10.1 systems, and hardware
makers that want to sell to those users will want a GCC 2 compiler. I can't
predict when the demand will go away, but presumably at some point the
devices' boxes will all say "10.2 or higher only" because the extra
sales to 10.1 users won't pay for the necessary testing.

Stan

Re: Apple and gcc 2?

[Michael Elizabeth Chastain]

> I can't really speak to this.  I don't really know if/when we are going 
> to drop support for compiling kext's with 2.95.

That's cool.  My survey shows a surprising number of gcc 2 platforms.

We got a bug report on bug-gdb today from someone who uses
gdb 5.3 and egcs 2.91.66!

Michael C

Re: Apple and gcc 2?

[Michael Elizabeth Chastain]

Excellent, this covers GCC 2 for Apple for my survey.

gcc 2 is very much alive in the field.  I've made a note to come
back in 3-6 months with another survey.  Personally, I think it will
be 18-30 months before gdb HEAD can drop gcc 2 support.

Michael C

Re: Apple and gcc 2?

[Mark Kettenis]

   Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 17:18:20 -0400
   From: Michael Elizabeth Chastain <mec@shout.net>

   Excellent, this covers GCC 2 for Apple for my survey.

   gcc 2 is very much alive in the field.  I've made a note to come
   back in 3-6 months with another survey.  Personally, I think it will
   be 18-30 months before gdb HEAD can drop gcc 2 support.

I sincerely hope that by "dropping GCC 2 support" you don't mean that
we actively start removing code to support GCC 2.

Mark

Re: Apple and gcc 2?

[Andrew Cagney]

> Excellent, this covers GCC 2 for Apple for my survey.
> 
> gcc 2 is very much alive in the field.  I've made a note to come
> back in 3-6 months with another survey.  Personally, I think it will
> be 18-30 months before gdb HEAD can drop gcc 2 support.

Given that various distro's are actively (as in the last month) shipping 
2.x based releases I'd leave it for at least 12 months.

Andrew

Re: Apple and gcc 2?

[Michael Elizabeth Chastain]

Mark> I sincerely hope that by "dropping GCC 2 support" you don't mean that
Mark> we actively start removing code to support GCC 2.

Oh, no, no, I am a long long ways from that.

  start:

    while (true)
    {
      document known usage of gcc 2;
      if (known usage < epsilon)
	break;
      sleep (3-6 months);  // I am here
    }

    while (true)
    {
      publish loud announcements;
      if (user feedback > epsilon)
	goto start;
      sleep (4-8 weeks);
    }
    
    remove gcc 2 from my test bed;
    wait for next gcc release;
    start marking code obsolete;

Of course that's just my personal algorithm, not gdb policy.

In fact, if anyone else asks about gcc 2, we can point to my survey
and all the platforms that still use gcc 2 as their primary gcc or
as a still-supported gcc.

Michael C