Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-12-12 Thread Goswin von Brederlow
Bill Allombert [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 04:22:37PM +0100, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
 Heiko M?ller [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 
  We found that gcc-2.95 -Os produces object code of acceptable quality 
  within reasonable compilation times. gcc =3 is less efficient w.r.t.
  compilation time and memory consumption and in many cases even fails 
  to compile our codes due to the very long expressions. The C/C++ codes
  generated from the computer algebra software are perhaps unusual but 
  not broken.
 
 Can you send in a few (hopefully short) examples that fail as
 bugreports?

 I cannot speak for Heiko, but my examples are far from short. Indeed
 they include a statement that is several megabytes long.

Short as in

double foo(double in1, double in2, ...) {
return /* very very long formula */
}

or something. Not 20MB of unintresting prefix to the actual code that
fails.

 gcc exhaust all the memory available and fail with 
  Internal compiler error:
  virtual memory exhausted
 An gcc version that use less memory will be able to complete the
 compilation.

Or a system with more memory.

It would be intresting to see if it actualy does compile or if it get
stuck in a loop allocating memory all the time or something. Bug like
that do exist.

MfG
Goswin


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-12-12 Thread Heiko Müller
Hi,
thanks for all the comments. I will do tests with gcc-4.x and, if the
regression is still there, file a bug report upstream.

Heiko

On Saturday 10 December 2005 20:03, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
 Heiko Müller wrote:
  Dear Thiemo,
  we very much appreciate your work on the gcc-2.95 debian package.
  For us - and probably also for other users in the scientific
  community - the old compiler version is still of great value.
 
  We use gcc-2.95 to compile C/C++ code with very large mathematical
  expressions generated by computer algebra software. This involves
  very long (several thousand lines of code) functions to evaluate
  multi-variable polynomial expression resulting from perturbation
  theoretical solutions of physical problems.
 
  We found that gcc-2.95 -Os produces object code of acceptable quality
  within reasonable compilation times. gcc =3 is less efficient w.r.t.
  compilation time and memory consumption and in many cases even fails
  to compile our codes due to the very long expressions. The C/C++ codes
  generated from the computer algebra software are perhaps unusual but
  not broken.

 Well, gcc 3.x was somewhat disappointing WRT, but I would expect 4.0
 to do better. If 4.x fails for your (valid and standard-conforming)
 code, please consider to provide a testcase to the upstream developers.
 I'm sure they are interested in it, and long-term it will help you as
 well to have a more modern compiler which can handle such cases.

  Since what we are doing is not so unusual in theoretical physics we are
  probably not alone with these kind problems. Please consider that even
  if no other debian packages would depend on gcc-2.95 many users may
  very much require it.

 Indeed, I got also one private reply which suggested gcc-2.95 is still
 an interesting choice for some numerics code.


 Thiemo



Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-12-10 Thread Bill Allombert
On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 04:22:37PM +0100, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
 Heiko M?ller [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 
  We found that gcc-2.95 -Os produces object code of acceptable quality 
  within reasonable compilation times. gcc =3 is less efficient w.r.t.
  compilation time and memory consumption and in many cases even fails 
  to compile our codes due to the very long expressions. The C/C++ codes
  generated from the computer algebra software are perhaps unusual but 
  not broken.
 
 Can you send in a few (hopefully short) examples that fail as
 bugreports?

I cannot speak for Heiko, but my examples are far from short. Indeed
they include a statement that is several megabytes long.
gcc exhaust all the memory available and fail with 
 Internal compiler error:
 virtual memory exhausted
An gcc version that use less memory will be able to complete the
compilation.

 There is probably nothing to do about compile time and memory
 consuption but it should at least work. Maybe the compiled result is
 even faster.

Provide you have enough memory to get it at all.

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Imagine a large red swirl here.


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-12-10 Thread Steinar H. Gunderson
On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 09:33:11AM +0100, Heiko Müller wrote:
 We found that gcc-2.95 -Os produces object code of acceptable quality 
 within reasonable compilation times. gcc =3 is less efficient w.r.t.
 compilation time and memory consumption and in many cases even fails 
 to compile our codes due to the very long expressions.

Note that there were considerable improvements done in gcc 3.4 and gcc 4.0
with regard to compilation speed (in particular in non-optimizing builds);
you might want to re-test with GCC 4.x if you haven't already.

/* Steinar */
-- 
Homepage: http://www.sesse.net/


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-12-10 Thread Thiemo Seufer
Heiko Müller wrote:
 Dear Thiemo,
 we very much appreciate your work on the gcc-2.95 debian package.
 For us - and probably also for other users in the scientific 
 community - the old compiler version is still of great value.
 
 We use gcc-2.95 to compile C/C++ code with very large mathematical 
 expressions generated by computer algebra software. This involves 
 very long (several thousand lines of code) functions to evaluate 
 multi-variable polynomial expression resulting from perturbation 
 theoretical solutions of physical problems. 
 
 We found that gcc-2.95 -Os produces object code of acceptable quality 
 within reasonable compilation times. gcc =3 is less efficient w.r.t.
 compilation time and memory consumption and in many cases even fails 
 to compile our codes due to the very long expressions. The C/C++ codes
 generated from the computer algebra software are perhaps unusual but 
 not broken.

Well, gcc 3.x was somewhat disappointing WRT, but I would expect 4.0
to do better. If 4.x fails for your (valid and standard-conforming)
code, please consider to provide a testcase to the upstream developers.
I'm sure they are interested in it, and long-term it will help you as
well to have a more modern compiler which can handle such cases.

 Since what we are doing is not so unusual in theoretical physics we are
 probably not alone with these kind problems. Please consider that even 
 if no other debian packages would depend on gcc-2.95 many users may 
 very much require it.  

Indeed, I got also one private reply which suggested gcc-2.95 is still
an interesting choice for some numerics code.


Thiemo


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-12-09 Thread Heiko Müller
Dear Thiemo,
we very much appreciate your work on the gcc-2.95 debian package.
For us - and probably also for other users in the scientific 
community - the old compiler version is still of great value.

We use gcc-2.95 to compile C/C++ code with very large mathematical 
expressions generated by computer algebra software. This involves 
very long (several thousand lines of code) functions to evaluate 
multi-variable polynomial expression resulting from perturbation 
theoretical solutions of physical problems. 

We found that gcc-2.95 -Os produces object code of acceptable quality 
within reasonable compilation times. gcc =3 is less efficient w.r.t.
compilation time and memory consumption and in many cases even fails 
to compile our codes due to the very long expressions. The C/C++ codes
generated from the computer algebra software are perhaps unusual but 
not broken.

Since what we are doing is not so unusual in theoretical physics we are
probably not alone with these kind problems. Please consider that even 
if no other debian packages would depend on gcc-2.95 many users may 
very much require it.  

Best regards,
Heiko
 
-- 
Dr. Heiko Mueller  Englerstr. 28   Tel: +49 6221 89467-21
CEOS GmbH  D-69126 Heidelberg  Fax: +49 6221 89467-29
   Germany http://www.ceos-gmbh.de


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-12-09 Thread Goswin von Brederlow
Heiko Müller [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 We found that gcc-2.95 -Os produces object code of acceptable quality 
 within reasonable compilation times. gcc =3 is less efficient w.r.t.
 compilation time and memory consumption and in many cases even fails 
 to compile our codes due to the very long expressions. The C/C++ codes
 generated from the computer algebra software are perhaps unusual but 
 not broken.

Can you send in a few (hopefully short) examples that fail as
bugreports?

There is probably nothing to do about compile time and memory
consuption but it should at least work. Maybe the compiled result is
even faster.

MfG
Goswin


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-12-09 Thread Matthias Klose
Heiko Müller writes:
 We found that gcc-2.95 -Os produces object code of acceptable quality 
 within reasonable compilation times. gcc =3 is less efficient w.r.t.

please be more precise. Debian currently uses 4.0, and has a 4.1
prerelease in the archives (gcc-snapshot). such regressions are best
filed as bug reports with a self-contained example.

thanks, Matthias



Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-17 Thread Christian Fromme
On Tue, 15 Nov 2005, Thiemo Seufer wrote:

 while preparing an upload of gcc-2.95 which fixes its worst problems
 I wondered how many users of it are actually left. 9 packages in
 unstable still declare a build dependency on gcc-2.95 or g++-2.95,
 this makes it IMHO a plausible release goal to get rid of 2.95
 maintenance for etch.

I guess it is not a good idea as long as Linus still has the line
 - Make sure you have gcc 2.95.3 available in his README in the
kernel source tree.
 
Best wishes,
-- 
Christian Fromme

Mail: kaner at strace.org
 GPG: 9DE5E8B9

If you seek the kernel, then you must break the shell.
(Meister Eckhart)


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-17 Thread Bill Allombert
On Wed, Nov 16, 2005 at 01:23:43PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
 I wouldn't recommend to compile new code with 2.95 just because it is
 faster. It doesn't do standard C and misses many broken constructs which
 are caught by newer compilers.

The real advantage of gcc-2.95 is that we start to know what are its bugs
and limitations so we are less likely to get unpredicted behaviour than
with gcc-3.3. In some case this is unvaluable. For the same reason I am
quite happy to have woody gcc272 around.

(If woody had gcc272, then etch can have gcc-2.95 without shame, I think.)

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Nikita V. Youshchenko


 Dave Carrigan wrote:
 On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 06:00:06PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
 
  this makes it IMHO a plausible release goal to get rid of 2.95
  maintenance for etch.
 
 No it is not. Just because debian packages don't use 2.95 doesn't mean
 that end users have the same luxury.
 
 The need for gcc-2.95 usually means the source code is broken (in C99
 terms) and should be fixed. Do you have an example of an use case where
 this is unfeasible, and which is important enough to justify continued
 maintenance of gcc 2.95?

Device driver development for embedded systems? There are embedded systems,
including x86-based, that run kernels which fail to compile with gcc =
3.x.

Also, people have some code (old completed internal projects, etc), which
probably would never be ported to newer C++ standards (it's plainly too big
job), but which are still useful to keep working - e.g. for
demonstration/education/similar purposes.

I have to deal with the both above situations. And I believe I'm far not
alone here. So there is user benefit from keeping gcc 2.95 in usable state.
Not fixing internal compiler bugs - user who faces old compiler's failure
to build code should seriously consider switching to newer versions - but
just keeping packages installable and usable.


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Moritz Muehlenhoff
In linux.debian.devel, you wrote:
 The need for gcc-2.95 usually means the source code is broken (in C99
 terms) and should be fixed. Do you have an example of an use case where
 this is unfeasible, and which is important enough to justify continued
 maintenance of gcc 2.95?

[..]

 Also, people have some code (old completed internal projects, etc), which
 probably would never be ported to newer C++ standards (it's plainly too big
 job), but which are still useful to keep working - e.g. for
 demonstration/education/similar purposes.

 I have to deal with the both above situations. And I believe I'm far not
 alone here. So there is user benefit from keeping gcc 2.95 in usable state.
 Not fixing internal compiler bugs - user who faces old compiler's failure
 to build code should seriously consider switching to newer versions - but
 just keeping packages installable and usable.

I agree. Plus, compilation of C code with 2.95 is typically twice as fast
as 4.0. While 2.95 may be too buggy wrt C++, it's still useful for C.

Cheers,
Moritz


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Thiemo Seufer
Mark Brown wrote:
 On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 06:30:00PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
 
  The need for gcc-2.95 usually means the source code is broken (in C99
  terms) and should be fixed. Do you have an example of an use case where
  this is unfeasible, and which is important enough to justify continued
  maintenance of gcc 2.95?
 
 It was relatively common to find C++ code that wouldn't build with the
 new C++ front end in GCC 3.0.

Is there one left today? (Does this mean it is dead upstream?)


Thiemo


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Thiemo Seufer
Nikita V. Youshchenko wrote:
 
 
  Dave Carrigan wrote:
  On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 06:00:06PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
  
   this makes it IMHO a plausible release goal to get rid of 2.95
   maintenance for etch.
  
  No it is not. Just because debian packages don't use 2.95 doesn't mean
  that end users have the same luxury.
  
  The need for gcc-2.95 usually means the source code is broken (in C99
  terms) and should be fixed. Do you have an example of an use case where
  this is unfeasible, and which is important enough to justify continued
  maintenance of gcc 2.95?
 
 Device driver development for embedded systems? There are embedded systems,
 including x86-based, that run kernels which fail to compile with gcc =
 3.x.

In that case you likely need as well an older binutils version, which
probably means to use a sarge or even woody chroot.

 Also, people have some code (old completed internal projects, etc), which
 probably would never be ported to newer C++ standards (it's plainly too big
 job), but which are still useful to keep working - e.g. for
 demonstration/education/similar purposes.
 
 I have to deal with the both above situations. And I believe I'm far not
 alone here. So there is user benefit from keeping gcc 2.95 in usable state.
 Not fixing internal compiler bugs

AFAICS this makes a point to have some (un-/little) maintained version
of gcc-2.95 somewhere. It doesn't make a point to distribute it as part
of an official etch release.

 - user who faces old compiler's failure
 to build code should seriously consider switching to newer versions - but
 just keeping packages installable and usable.

Apparently those packages weren't useful/important enough to bring them
into Debian...


Thiemo


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Thiemo Seufer
Thiemo Seufer wrote:
 Nikita V. Youshchenko wrote:
[snip]
  Also, people have some code (old completed internal projects, etc), which
  probably would never be ported to newer C++ standards (it's plainly too big
  job), but which are still useful to keep working - e.g. for
  demonstration/education/similar purposes.
  
  I have to deal with the both above situations. And I believe I'm far not
  alone here. So there is user benefit from keeping gcc 2.95 in usable state.
  Not fixing internal compiler bugs
 
 AFAICS this makes a point to have some (un-/little) maintained version
 of gcc-2.95 somewhere. It doesn't make a point to distribute it as part
 of an official etch release.
 
  - user who faces old compiler's failure
  to build code should seriously consider switching to newer versions - but
  just keeping packages installable and usable.
 
 Apparently those packages weren't useful/important enough to bring them
 into Debian...

s/packages/programs which need gcc 2.95/, that is.


Thiemo


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Thiemo Seufer
Moritz Muehlenhoff wrote:
 In linux.debian.devel, you wrote:
  The need for gcc-2.95 usually means the source code is broken (in C99
  terms) and should be fixed. Do you have an example of an use case where
  this is unfeasible, and which is important enough to justify continued
  maintenance of gcc 2.95?
 
 [..]
 
  Also, people have some code (old completed internal projects, etc), which
  probably would never be ported to newer C++ standards (it's plainly too big
  job), but which are still useful to keep working - e.g. for
  demonstration/education/similar purposes.
 
  I have to deal with the both above situations. And I believe I'm far not
  alone here. So there is user benefit from keeping gcc 2.95 in usable state.
  Not fixing internal compiler bugs - user who faces old compiler's failure
  to build code should seriously consider switching to newer versions - but
  just keeping packages installable and usable.
 
 I agree. Plus, compilation of C code with 2.95 is typically twice as fast
 as 4.0. While 2.95 may be too buggy wrt C++, it's still useful for C.

I wouldn't recommend to compile new code with 2.95 just because it is
faster. It doesn't do standard C and misses many broken constructs which
are caught by newer compilers.

It may still have some use for regression tests, and for old code
without a prospect of getting updated. I don't know how relevant
those cases are for Debian.


Thiemo


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Nikita V. Youshchenko
  The need for gcc-2.95 usually means the source code is broken (in C99
  terms) and should be fixed. Do you have an example of an use case where
  this is unfeasible, and which is important enough to justify continued
  maintenance of gcc 2.95?
 
 Device driver development for embedded systems? There are embedded
 systems, including x86-based, that run kernels which fail to compile with
 gcc = 3.x.
 
 In that case you likely need as well an older binutils version, which
 probably means to use a sarge or even woody chroot.

I have not yet faced a situation where newer binutils wont, work.

 
 Also, people have some code (old completed internal projects, etc), which
 probably would never be ported to newer C++ standards (it's plainly too
 big job), but which are still useful to keep working - e.g. for
 demonstration/education/similar purposes.
 
 AFAICS this makes a point to have some (un-/little) maintained version
 of gcc-2.95 somewhere. It doesn't make a point to distribute it as part
 of an official etch release.
 
 - user who faces old compiler's failure
 to build code should seriously consider switching to newer versions - but
 just keeping packages installable and usable.
 
 Apparently those packages weren't useful/important enough to bring them
 into Debian...

Are debian compiler packages intended to compile debian packages only, or
also to be used as compiler for non-debian tasks also?

The situation is: gcc-2.95 is no longer needed to compile debian packages,
but it is still needed for other tasks, by many people. So why remove it?


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Thiemo Seufer
Nikita V. Youshchenko wrote:
   The need for gcc-2.95 usually means the source code is broken (in C99
   terms) and should be fixed. Do you have an example of an use case where
   this is unfeasible, and which is important enough to justify continued
   maintenance of gcc 2.95?
  
  Device driver development for embedded systems? There are embedded
  systems, including x86-based, that run kernels which fail to compile with
  gcc = 3.x.
  
  In that case you likely need as well an older binutils version, which
  probably means to use a sarge or even woody chroot.
 
 I have not yet faced a situation where newer binutils wont, work.

#336022, as the latest example I saw.

[snip]
  Apparently those packages weren't useful/important enough to bring them
  into Debian...
 
 Are debian compiler packages intended to compile debian packages only, or
 also to be used as compiler for non-debian tasks also?

IMHO the latter, as long as it incurs no additional overhead.

 The situation is: gcc-2.95 is no longer needed to compile debian packages,
 but it is still needed for other tasks, by many people.

By whom, and for what? So far I haven't heard a specific project's name.

 So why remove it?

Is it worth to fix when it breaks again? (Currently it FTBFS on alpha,
probably binutils-induced.)


Thiemo


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Dave Carrigan
On Wed, Nov 16, 2005 at 04:12:45PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:

  The situation is: gcc-2.95 is no longer needed to compile debian packages,
  but it is still needed for other tasks, by many people.
 
 By whom, and for what? So far I haven't heard a specific project's
 name.

Debian does not exist for the benefit of its developers, it exists for
the benefit of its users. I doubt that many Debian *users* read
debian-devel so they aren't going to be responding to messages in this
thread. 

I am quite sure that there are Debian *users* out there that have legacy
code that only builds under gcc 2.95 (or more likely g++ 2.95) and they
haven't ported it to a newer C compiler because there is no business
case for it. 

Removing a package simply because the Debian developers don't need it
any more is the kind of arrogance that drives users away from Debian to
other distributions.

-- 
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Seattle, WA, USA
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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Thomas Viehmann
Dave Carrigan wrote:
 On Wed, Nov 16, 2005 at 04:12:45PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
The situation is: gcc-2.95 is no longer needed to compile debian packages,
but it is still needed for other tasks, by many people.

By whom, and for what? So far I haven't heard a specific project's
name.

[...]
 I am quite sure that there are Debian *users* out there that have legacy
 code that only builds under gcc 2.95 (or more likely g++ 2.95) and they
 haven't ported it to a newer C compiler because there is no business
 case for it. 

Dave, we're not working on the removal of gcc 2.95 for the fun of it.
Sarge ships with gcc 3.3 as default and supports gcc 2.95. More than one
year from now, Debian will release its next stable release and the
balance of the costs of continued support of gcc 2.95 versus its
benefits is shifting to a point where the effort of keeping 2.95 is
undesirable. Support for old compilers is quite an effort and it's in
the best interest of Debian and its users by dropping it so that Debian
can retain its high quality standard.
Debian is not rushing to drop gcc 2.95, but in the long run, it's
inevitable. Or, to put it in your words, there is a business case for
dropping gcc 2.95 support in etch.

 Removing a package simply because the Debian developers don't need it
 any more is the kind of arrogance that drives users away from Debian to
 other distributions.

Well, Debian is a fairly large sample of (free) software. If reliance on
gcc 2.95 is a vanishing characteristic of Debian packages, this suggests
that the general usage has diminished to a point where it is
unreasonable to continue support. this is why Thiemo asks for evidance
of the contrary. This has nothing to do with arrogance or developers
disregarding the interests of its users. It is about sustaining quality
by allocating resources appropriately.

Kind regards

T.

-- 
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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Erinn Clark
* Dave Carrigan [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2005:11:16 07:33 -0800]: 
 I am quite sure that there are Debian *users* out there that have legacy
 code that only builds under gcc 2.95 (or more likely g++ 2.95) and they
 haven't ported it to a newer C compiler because there is no business
 case for it. 

I fit this use case -- I work with embedded devices and as a result,
sometimes older versions of software are necessary. However, it's
usually not just gcc alone, it's glibc et al as well.  The solution
isn't to keep gcc 2.95 around indefinitely; it's for people to use
debootstrap and chroots.

--
off the chain like a rebellious guanine nucleotide


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Will Newton
On Wednesday 16 November 2005 12:05, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
  Device driver development for embedded systems? There are embedded
  systems, including x86-based, that run kernels which fail to compile with
  gcc = 3.x.

 In that case you likely need as well an older binutils version, which
 probably means to use a sarge or even woody chroot.

2.95 works fine with the latest binutils in my experience.


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Christian T. Steigies
On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 06:00:06PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
 
 Replacement (2.6 Kernel) in the works, should be removed once 2.6 is
 stable enough:
 
Christian T. Steigies [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   kernel-image-2.4.27-m68kBuild-Depends: gcc-2.95
   kernel-patch-2.4.27-m68kBuild-Depends-Indep: gcc-2.95

It might take a while until 2.6 kernels can fully replace 2.4 (and 2.2!)
kernels on m68k. Half of our buildds can not be installed with a 2.6 kernel
at the moment. But people are working on it.
Until then we need 2.4 on m68k, however I just (cross-)compiled 2.4.27 with
gcc-3.3 with no problems. Since the 2.6 kernels are already built with
gcc-3.3, 2.4 might actually work with gcc-3.3 also, I will give it a try and
let you know.

Christian


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Matthias Klose
Dave Carrigan writes:
 I am quite sure that there are Debian *users* out there that have legacy
 code that only builds under gcc 2.95 (or more likely g++ 2.95) and they
 haven't ported it to a newer C compiler because there is no business
 case for it. 
 
 Removing a package simply because the Debian developers don't need it
 any more is the kind of arrogance that drives users away from Debian to
 other distributions.

You are still ok, aren't you?  It's rather that kind of arrogance of a
minority of users/lobbyists/some persons, who try to enforce support
of old software for obscure reasons.  You are free to maintain it
outside the debian archives, if your time does permit it. Just yelling
that somebody (i.e. Debian) should do it is so easy ...

There's hardly any current distribution which still ships 2.95, so I'm
unsure where you will go to.

  Matthias


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Nikita V. Youshchenko
 Debian is not rushing to drop gcc 2.95, but in the long run, it's
 inevitable. Or, to put it in your words, there is a business case for
 dropping gcc 2.95 support in etch.

If current debian maintainer(s) don't want to maintain gcc-2.95 any longer,
they should probably orphan it, just like any other package. Maybe someone
else will take it over. And only if nobody would, package should be
removed. It's that simple.


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Ron Johnson
On Wed, 2005-11-16 at 07:33 -0800, Dave Carrigan wrote:
 On Wed, Nov 16, 2005 at 04:12:45PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
 
   The situation is: gcc-2.95 is no longer needed to compile debian packages,
   but it is still needed for other tasks, by many people.
  
  By whom, and for what? So far I haven't heard a specific project's
  name.
 
 Debian does not exist for the benefit of its developers, it exists for
 the benefit of its users. I doubt that many Debian *users* read
 debian-devel so they aren't going to be responding to messages in this
 thread. 
[snip]
 Removing a package simply because the Debian developers don't need it
 any more is the kind of arrogance that drives users away from Debian to
 other distributions.

Geez, talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.

How much do you *pay*, in hard, cold Dead Presidents, to use Debian?

That's right: Zero.  Nada.  Zilch.

Debian is staffed by volunteers who do this because they want to.
I, for one, appreciate very, very much what they do for me.

-- 
-
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson, LA USA
PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail.

We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and
we seem to do it about every ten minutes.
Senator J. William Fulbright (D-AR)


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Miros/law Baran
16.11.2005 pisze Ron Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):

 Debian is staffed by volunteers who do this because they want to.
 I, for one, appreciate very, very much what they do for me.

quote
Writing/maintaining software is providing a service (even when
it's free). You need to listen to your customers if you want to
learn what features they need and thereby improve your product.
Of course, the customer isn't _always_ right, and often they
suggest specific implementations which don't fit into the grand
scheme, but it's the input of ideas which is important. Even if
they seem at first to be wrong, I've found it's always worth
thinking about them, even if you ultimate modify or reject them.
This is all IMHO, of course.
   --Philip Hazel on exim-users@exim.org
/quote

Jubal

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[ BOF2510053411, http://hell.pl/baran/tek/, alchemy pany! ] [ The Answer ] 

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   I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.''


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Ron Johnson
On Wed, 2005-11-16 at 21:07 +0100, Miros/law Baran wrote:
 16.11.2005 pisze Ron Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
 
  Debian is staffed by volunteers who do this because they want to.
  I, for one, appreciate very, very much what they do for me.
 
 quote
 Writing/maintaining software is providing a service (even when
 it's free). You need to listen to your customers if you want to
 learn what features they need and thereby improve your product.

Consumer, yes (of bandwidth and DD time, effort, etc), or user,
but not a customer, since the dictionary explicitly uses terms 
and phrases like makes purchases of a trader; a purchaser; a 
buyer and person with whom a business house has dealing.

Now, if used RHAS, then I'd be a customer of RH, since I'd be
paying them.


 Of course, the customer isn't _always_ right, and often they
 suggest specific implementations which don't fit into the grand
 scheme, but it's the input of ideas which is important. Even if
 they seem at first to be wrong, I've found it's always worth
 thinking about them, even if you ultimate modify or reject them.
 This is all IMHO, of course.

If you did s/customer/user/ then I'd agree with you.

-- 
-
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson, LA USA
PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail.

There's no obfuscated Perl contest because it's pointless.
Jeff Polk


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-16 Thread Brian Nelson
Thiemo Seufer [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 while preparing an upload of gcc-2.95 which fixes its worst problems
 I wondered how many users of it are actually left. 9 packages in
 unstable still declare a build dependency on gcc-2.95 or g++-2.95,
 this makes it IMHO a plausible release goal to get rid of 2.95
 maintenance for etch.

The most recent LJ notes that Adrian Bunk tried to push a patch in the
kernel to remove support for older compilers, but was met with
resistance from people that still use GCC 2.95.  Apparently, these
people prefer it for development due to its significantly faster
compilation times compared to v3 and higher versions.

-- 
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State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-15 Thread Thiemo Seufer
Hello All,

while preparing an upload of gcc-2.95 which fixes its worst problems
I wondered how many users of it are actually left. 9 packages in
unstable still declare a build dependency on gcc-2.95 or g++-2.95,
this makes it IMHO a plausible release goal to get rid of 2.95
maintenance for etch.

The appended list gives a short overview of what needs to be done
to achieve this. Please tell me if I missed or misunderstood something.


Thiemo


Unacknowledged NMU for  one year, FTBFS for  200 days, either update
or remove:

   Bao C. Ha [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  curselBuild-Depends: gcc-2.95

Sparc bootloader, needs update:

   Ben Collins [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  silo  Build-Depends: gcc-2.95

Obsolete according to #debian-hurd, no request for removal filed yet:

   GNU Hurd Maintainers bug-hurd@gnu.org
  gnumach1  Build-Depends: gcc-2.95

Replacement (2.6 Kernel) in the works, should be removed once 2.6 is
stable enough:

   Christian T. Steigies [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  kernel-image-2.4.27-m68k  Build-Depends: gcc-2.95
  kernel-patch-2.4.27-m68k  Build-Depends-Indep: gcc-2.95

Openfirmware emulator/replacement(?), powerpc specific, needs update:

   Guillem Jover [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  openhackware  Build-Depends-Indep: gcc-2.95

Unacknowledged NMU for  one year, either update or remove:

   Ben Pfaff [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  gcccheckerBuild-Depends: gcc-2.95

Erraneous build dependency, should get fixed in the next upload, #336564:

   Robin Verduijn [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  mcvs  Build-Depends: gcc-2.95 [mips mipsel]

Malloc debugging, #285685 suggests it is broken for  300 days now,
either update or remove:

   Steve M. Robbins [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  ccmalloc  Build-Depends: g++-2.95 [alpha arm i386 m68k mips 
mipsel powerpc s390 sparc]


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-15 Thread Dave Carrigan
On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 06:00:06PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:

 this makes it IMHO a plausible release goal to get rid of 2.95
 maintenance for etch.

No it is not. Just because debian packages don't use 2.95 doesn't mean
that end users have the same luxury.

-- 
Dave Carrigan
Seattle, WA, USA
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.rudedog.org/
UNIX-Apache-Perl-Linux-Firewalls-LDAP-C-C++-DNS-PalmOS-PostgreSQL-MySQL-Postfix


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-15 Thread Marco d'Itri
On Nov 15, Dave Carrigan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 No it is not. Just because debian packages don't use 2.95 doesn't mean
 that end users have the same luxury.
Can you point us to some examples of such programs?
Also, are you sure that users will not just be able to install the
2.95 packages from sarge?

-- 
ciao,
Marco


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-15 Thread Thiemo Seufer
Dave Carrigan wrote:
 On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 06:00:06PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
 
  this makes it IMHO a plausible release goal to get rid of 2.95
  maintenance for etch.
 
 No it is not. Just because debian packages don't use 2.95 doesn't mean
 that end users have the same luxury.

The need for gcc-2.95 usually means the source code is broken (in C99
terms) and should be fixed. Do you have an example of an use case where
this is unfeasible, and which is important enough to justify continued
maintenance of gcc 2.95?


Thiemo


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-15 Thread Ben Pfaff
Thiemo Seufer [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 Unacknowledged NMU for  one year, either update or remove:

Ben Pfaff [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   gccchecker  Build-Depends: gcc-2.95

I recently filed a request to have this package removed.  It is
not maintained upstream and valgrind is a better replacement.
-- 
Ben Pfaff 
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
web: http://benpfaff.org


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-15 Thread Steve M. Robbins
On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 06:00:06PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:

 Malloc debugging, #285685 suggests it is broken for  300 days now,
 either update or remove:
 
Steve M. Robbins [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   ccmallocBuild-Depends: g++-2.95 [alpha arm i386 m68k 
 mips mipsel powerpc s390 sparc]

It's not broken.  That bug is there to remind me to improve the package 
dependencies.

Ccmalloc isn't dependent on GCC 2.95 per se.  It's just that we build
a stub for each supported version of g++.  So if 2.95 goes away, I'll
just remove that build-dep.  No problem.

-Steve


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-15 Thread Thiemo Seufer
Steve M. Robbins wrote:
 On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 06:00:06PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
 
  Malloc debugging, #285685 suggests it is broken for  300 days now,
  either update or remove:
  
 Steve M. Robbins [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ccmalloc  Build-Depends: g++-2.95 [alpha arm i386 m68k 
  mips mipsel powerpc s390 sparc]
 
 It's not broken.  That bug is there to remind me to improve the package 
 dependencies.
 
 Ccmalloc isn't dependent on GCC 2.95 per se.  It's just that we build
 a stub for each supported version of g++.  So if 2.95 goes away, I'll
 just remove that build-dep.  No problem.

Ok, I'll record it as Build-Deps on g++-2.95 only to support gcc-2.95.


Thiemo


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-15 Thread Thiemo Seufer
Ben Pfaff wrote:
 Thiemo Seufer [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 
  Unacknowledged NMU for  one year, either update or remove:
 
 Ben Pfaff [EMAIL PROTECTED]
gcccheckerBuild-Depends: gcc-2.95
 
 I recently filed a request to have this package removed.  It is
 not maintained upstream and valgrind is a better replacement.

JFTR, request for removal was #337558.


Thiemo


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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-15 Thread Mark Brown
On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 06:30:00PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:

 The need for gcc-2.95 usually means the source code is broken (in C99
 terms) and should be fixed. Do you have an example of an use case where
 this is unfeasible, and which is important enough to justify continued
 maintenance of gcc 2.95?

It was relatively common to find C++ code that wouldn't build with the
new C++ front end in GCC 3.0.

-- 
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Re: State of gcc 2.95 use in Debian unstable

2005-11-15 Thread Guillem Jover
On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 06:00:06PM +0100, Thiemo Seufer wrote:
 while preparing an upload of gcc-2.95 which fixes its worst problems
 I wondered how many users of it are actually left. 9 packages in
 unstable still declare a build dependency on gcc-2.95 or g++-2.95,
 this makes it IMHO a plausible release goal to get rid of 2.95
 maintenance for etch.

 Obsolete according to #debian-hurd, no request for removal filed yet:
 
GNU Hurd Maintainers bug-hurd@gnu.org
   gnumach1Build-Depends: gcc-2.95

I'll be asking for its removal this week.

 Openfirmware emulator/replacement(?), powerpc specific, needs update:
 
Guillem Jover [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   openhackwareBuild-Depends-Indep: gcc-2.95

I'll allocate some time to upgrade this to latest gcc.

thanks,
guillem


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