[OpenBIOS] Some encountered issues when compiling openbios on a ppc64 host

[Blue Swirl]

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 8:59 PM, Stefan Reinauer <stepan at openbios.org> wrote:
> On 1/19/10 8:00 PM, Blue Swirl wrote:
>>> But frankly, the better solution would be to drop our libgcc copy and use
>>> that of gcc again... It was a design mistake to let our own copy sneak in.
>>>
>> I disagree. Having our own libgcc makes OpenBIOS independent of any
>> installed libc headers of the host.
> libgcc and libc headers have nothing to do with each other. libgcc is
> part of gcc, and any gcc without libgcc is to be considered an
> incomplete toolchain.
>> You can also use target-elf/-eabi
>> cross-compilers, which are easier to build than for example
>> target-linux.
> Yes, but if those are built correctly, they still come with libgcc. If
> they don't, it makes more sense to file a bug report with the toolchain
> provider than to duplicate parts of the toolchain in openbios.

The problem was with older 3.x (maybe early 4.x) series in
cross-compile mode, so bug reports may not help.

>> At least for Sparc32/64, the administrative burden has
>> not been very big, though I don't know about PPC.
>>
> The administrative burden is higher than using a complete toolchain...
> Who is supplying gcc without libgcc anyways?

Some numbers: there were just 12 commits regarding libgcc since r4 (!)
introduced it in 2006, some of them were generic cleanups.

>> This is the same approach as taken by Linux.
>>
> Not a very good argument. libgcc is part of gcc. So there is no reason
> to duplicate it in any project. This is not some OS dependency like
> crt0.o but very gcc intrinsic.

If we decide to only support new GCCs, I guess libgcc support could be
dropped. Maybe it's OK after all, for example I don't have the buggy
3.x versions of the cross-compilers anymore. With the 4.2.4 version
which I'm using, there is a libgcc.a for all target architectures.