[okl4-developer] Using Gcc 4.1/4.3

[Geoffrey Lee]

On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 08:50:22PM +0530, G S Madhusudan wrote:
> 1. Apps will be native and Linux based. But down the road, I am hoping we
> get rid of Linux (the goal of the project is in fact to find an 
> alternative to Linux !)
> 
> 2. I am trying to build a standard L4 env for network appliances and the 
> idea is to get 3rd party
> modules to be dynamically installable. As you can see, having a std tool 
> chain makes this
> a little easier, otherwise we are bound to see issues with lib 
> incompatibility. I personally
> do not have a problem with a custom toolchain, having used cross 
> complier tools
> for the past 25 years ! But I want the env to be used for teaching and 
> maybe some research and
> custom tools do make adoption more difficult.
> 
> But to repeat my question, is updating the complier that difficult ? I 
> have not done any analysis , so I do not have a clue.
> I plan to create a GUI driven build env for L4 to enable fine grain 
> customization and to be able to build
> to specific resource constraints. As part of this effort, I can take a 
> stab at updating the compiler, if the
> effort is not significant.

Thanks for getting back to us, we now have a better idea of what you
are trying to do.

The kernel code is a restricted set of C++ with some assembly,
while userland code is C with some assembly stubs.  As such
most code should compile fine with a newer toolchain.  Having said that,
we sometimes rely on more esoteric toolchain features such as alignment 
restrictions and linker scripts.  Sometimes things will trip because
code which made assumptions which were valid is no longer valid for
a newer toolchain, or maybe there is a genuine problem in the toolchain
itself.

Note that if you specify the toolprefix= argument in the command line,
it will prepend the value specified to gcc.  In this way you can
specify an alternate path for your new toolchain for testing purposes.

	-gl

> 
> 
> Madhu
> 
> 
> Geoffrey Lee wrote:
> >On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 06:37:45PM +0530, G S Madhusudan wrote:
> >  
> >>Some apps I am testing do need the newer compilers. I guess multiple 
> >>versions of gcc
> >>could be used but  it is easier to use a consistent toolchain. Any 
> >>particular reason why the migration to the newer is held up ? Is the 
> >>effort required that significant ?
> >>
> >>    
> >
> >
> >Hi
> >
> >Are these Linux applications or are these applications that you have
> >ported to run natively on OKL4?
> >
> >A quick solution might be to compile out of tree and then stick
> >them into the rootfs package or hard disk if you are booting 
> >off disk.  There is no real requirement for Linux applications
> >run on OK Linux to be compiled with the pre-compiled toolchain, 
> >other than the fact that if they were dynamically linked they
> >need to be compatible with the libc and related libraries that
> >will be used to support the application on OK Linux.
> >
> >
> >
> >	-gl
> >
> >
> >  
> >>Nelson Tam wrote:
> >>    
> >>>Hi,
> >>>
> >>>On 08/05/2008, at 4:11 PM, G S Madhusudan wrote:
> >>>      
> >>>>Is there any plan to shift to the latest versions of GCC  ?
> >>>>        
> >>>At the moment, it's best if you could just stick to the recommended 
> >>>toolchains available at http://www.ertos.nicta.com.au/downloads.
> >>>
> >>>Are these tools causing a problem for you at the moment?
> >>>-- 
> >>>(nt)
> >>>
> >>>Nelson Tam
> >>>
> >>>      
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>Developer mailing list
> >>Developer at okl4.org
> >>https://lists.okl4.org/mailman/listinfo/developer
> >>
> >>    
> >
> >  
> 
> 

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