Am 08.05.2010 17:56, schrieb Kevin O'Connor:
I think coreboot should try to avoid using .a files.
The latest version of gcc (v4.5) contains the -flto feature. This can provide significant benefits to coreboot code generation because it allows the entire romstage (and ramstage) to be analyzed as a whole. The resulting binaries are significantly smaller because unused code can be eliminated and more functions can be inlined. Unfortunately, the standard linker can't handle -flto with .a files.
Our build system is advanced enough that this can be an option based on compiler version.
Thanks for the notice, but I guess we should support non-lto builds until gcc4.5 is the lowest common denominator, or even better the next version, so we can assume that bugs are fixed.
Patrick