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The GNU tools are irreplaceableThe GNU tools are irreplaceablePosted Oct 25, 2006 16:05 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304)In reply to: The GNU tools are irreplaceable by AJWM Parent article: GPLv3: What the Hackers Said (Linux Journal)
It's not that nobody could do it: it's that modifying Linux to be compilable by a compiler not implementing a large subset of the set of C extensions known as GNU C would be sufficiently difficult that nobody would bother.
What happens, instead, is that vendors of other (proprietary) C compilers that run on Linux modify their compilers to support enough of GNU C that they can compile the kernel: and even then it tends to break because the compilers don't necessarily support as many as GCC does, and because kernel hackers tend to build the kernel with GCC, so it gets most of its compilation and run-testing and compiler bug workarounds and so on with GCC in view.
All free-as-in-freedom C compilers remotely capable enough to compile the Linux kernel incorporate large amounts of GCC source anyway (the SGI(?) one whose name I forget and LLVM both use the GCC backends and parts of the middle-end). The non-free ones presumably don't, but they're also not amenable to modification by the kernel hackers.
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The GNU tools are irreplaceable Posted Nov 2, 2006 22:56 UTC (Thu) by anton (guest, #25547) [Link] All free-as-in-freedom C compilers remotely capable enough to compile the Linux kernel incorporate large amounts of GCC source anywayTcc can compile the Linux kernel, and (judging from the licence (LGPL), and from the bugs that turn up) does not incorporate GCC source code. However, that does not mean you can compile the rest of a Linux distribution with tcc.
The GNU tools are irreplaceable Posted Nov 14, 2006 20:50 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Can it? Wow, it's come on a long way since I saw it last.
I really must look at it again.
(Mind you, I wouldn't much want to run a highly-loaded machine on such a
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