Re: [Plib-users] OT RH7.0 rant

[Bernie B. <bb...@bi...>]

Steve Baker wrote:
> 
> Digvijay Singh Lamba wrote:
> >
> > Hi!
> > I have recently compiled and installed plib on my redhat 7.0 system.
> 
> Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!!!!
> 

ditto

> (Sorry - I said I'd scream if I heard another RH 7.0 problem).
> 
[snip]
> 
> The major beef is probably the C/C++ compiler.  The Bozo's at RH picked
> an UNRELEASED CVS version of gcc - so who knows what problems it might
> have? ...

Actually the then weekly snapshot.

> ...  Certainly other projects have seen all kinds of problems and
> the Linux Kernel team created such a stink over RH using that half-assed
> version that they demanded that RH install an older version of gcc for
> rebuilding the kernel!  (That means that RH *knew* there was a problem
> before they cut their CD-ROMS - and *STILL* went ahead and did it!)
> 
> So, the advice I've heard from other RH7 victims is to remove gcc/g++
> and instead to symbolic-link the kernel's private compiler "kgcc"
> (which is a nice stable version) to gcc.
> 

RH are becoming the more like MS everyday.  NEVER install a point 0
release.  Wait for the point one.

And so the spin doctoring begins...

The kernel team's problems are mostly of their own making.  They use a
lot of assembler and hand coded register optimisations that break with
the more aggressive optimiser of recent GCC snapshots. 

Some points to note.  GCC 2.95 is now over a year old.  Std C++ is
nearly two years old.  The now defunct egcs project started as a result
of dissatisfaction with GCC 2.7.2, its lack of standards compliance, the
lack of new releases and limited access to the source.  Everyone (except
the kernel team) was pleased when egcs-1.0 appeared.  Eventually egcs
gets merged into mainstream GCC with egcs-1.1.2 re-labelled as GCC
2.95.  Kernels compile and run quite happily with gcc-2.95/egcs-1.1.2. 
In the meantime some of us (non-kernel hackers) are still waiting for
GCC 3.0 (three months late and probably not happening this year).

Perhaps we do need two compilers - one for the kernel and one for the
rest of us.  Hmmm sounds like every other Unix system I've ever worked
on.

Bernie (a contented Mandrake 7.1 (Linux version 2.2.17 (gcc version
2.95.3))/Red Hat 6.2 (stock standard) user)