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"Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
From:
Matthew Heaney <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 25 Jun 1998 18:48:21 GMT
In-Reply-To:
<v04011701b1b83bcb630b@[139.121.27.73]> (message from jim hopper on Thu, 25 Jun 1998 13:44:16 -0400)
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Reply-To:
Matthew Heaney <[log in to unmask]>
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text/plain (91 lines)
> if you know what you are doing you can avoid this, but its not the
> kind of slam dunk that would allow someone without experience to get
> it done.

That's about my situation.  I know how to use the patch utility, and run
configure, but that's about it.  I get completely lost trying to merge
different changes from different vendors to the same source code.

It's even worse these days.  Because the linux (ppc?) camp wasn't
satisfied with the (slow) rate at which FSF was making changes to gcc,
they went out and created their own brand of gcc, called egcs.  The
linuxppc guys seem to prefer that you use that compiler, but I don't
know if gnat can even work with that.

The thing is, right now, I don't even care much about how good the code
generation is.  I just want a compiler that can compile my toy programs
that I write for the patterns list, etc.

> but much more important, gnat 3.11 only works with gcc 2.8.1 and above,
> which as far as i know has not been done for linuxppc (i could be wrong).
> do you know anything about support for 2.8.1 in linuxppc?

I think it has been ported.  Below is the text of a message from someone
from cygnus.

Matt


(start of message)
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 11:47:06 -0400
From: Michael Meissner <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [linux-ppc] Building gcc (gcc-2.7.2.1)
X-UIDL: d3218b9ddecb7785d15b7bf31ca9a93c

| I have some questions about building the gcc compiler for linux ppc.
|
| Looking around the linuxppc.org website, I noticed that the sources for
| gcc-2.8 are there, but not for the older gcc-2.7.2.1.
|
| Q: How does one build gcc-2.7.2.1 for the ppc linux, using the sources
| available at the gnu ftp site?

You can't (at least not without patches).  I produced a set a long time ago,
but now that egcs-1.0.3 (recomended) and fsf gcc 2.8.1 (not as recomended) are
out, it is better to go with them.  As I recall, the last time I made a patch
set, it was something like a day's worth of time.

| Q: Is there a specific reason why the patches for gcc-2.7.2.1 aren't at
| linuxppc.org?  (Maybe there were no patches?)

2.7.2.x is really too old and musty.

| Q: Are older versions of source patches archived somewhere?
|
|
| The reason I ask is because I want to build the latest version of gnat
| (the gcc Ada compiler), version 3.10p (v3.09 was the version that
| appeared on the Valentine's Day CD).
|
| In order to build gnat from sources, I need to apply gnat patches to the
| sources for gcc-2.7.2.1, and build the gcc compiler.  But in order to do
| that, I need the patches from the linuxppc folks.
|
|
| Q: In general, why can't the sources at the gnu ftp site be used as is,
| without requiring any patches for linux ppc?  We seem to have an
| "unofficial" release.  Why is that?

Because I and David hadn't finished hacking on the machine dependent portions
of the compiler in the 2.7.x time frame (which was 3 years ago by the way), and
for various reasons there was a 2+ year gap between 2.7 coming out and egcs
1.0/fsf 2.8.  Feel free to try and back port the changes (but the trouble is
there are changes in the machine independent portion of the compiler that are
also made in addition to all of the machine dependent changes in config/rs6000.

| Q: In general, what does one need to know to patch the gcc - or any
| other gnu software - in order to make it work under linux on a powerpc?
| To the guys reading this list who write patches for ppc linux: what did
| you do to acquire your knowledge?

It depends on what you are doing.  The ramp up time for GCC is on the order of
months (it was at 3 months in my case before I was at least comfortable with
the source, many, many years ago in the days of the 88k).

--
Michael Meissner, Cygnus Solutions (Massachusetts office)
4th floor, 955 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
[log in to unmask],    617-354-5416 (office),  617-354-7161 (fax)
(end of message)

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