From: Alan Cox <alan@cymru.net>
Subject: Re: gcc vs. egcs
To: testers-list@redhat.com
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:55:07 +0100 (BST)

> The following was reported in the Linux Weekly News for 4/23:
> 
>                   There has been an increase in the number of
>                   people reporting kernel problems who are using
>                   egcs or gcc-2.8. Folks should remember that the
>                   kernel developers are currently quite unsympathetic
>                   toward these problems; the Linux kernel is only
>                   "supported" with gcc-2.7.2. Newer versions of the
>                   compiler will take time... 

That could be read slightly inaccurately

The situation is as follows

o	Linux 2.0.x builds correctly with gcc 2.7.2 (-1 and -3). 

o	Linux 2.1.x builds correctly with gcc 2.7.2, 2.8.1 and egcs (a few
	errors keep popping up and people keep squashing them). 

I don't think there is anyone who doesn't intend 2.2.0 to work with 2.8.1
and all the bugs people are finding now with gcc 2.8.1 are Linux not gcc
bugs where the kernel forgot to stop gcc 2.8.1 optimising something we
didnt want optimised, or from poor asm constraints on the linux code.

The problem is _nobody_ knows how many of those are still hiding in 2.0.x
and introducing subtle races, so for safety we say build 2.0.x with 
gcc-2.7.2-*.

So its an argument for what you build kernels with but its not an argument
to which is the better compiler. Kernel code is just very touchy about such
things.

Alan