Fedora Core 4 Test 1 slips [GCC 4 status]

Posted Feb 24, 2005 0:27 UTC (Thu) by amacater (subscriber, #790)
Parent article: Fedora Core 4 Test 1 slips

Fedora Core may not be stupid enough to ship a pre-release GCC - but
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 does. gcc.gnu.org describe the GCC 4.0 branch
as being in stage 3 (bugfixes only) prior to release "early in 2005" or
some such. Snapshots out of CVS are available for the brave. RHEL 4 ships
gcc4 - rpm is gcc4-0-0-0.14.EL4 (and the accompanying g++/fortran etc.)
Running gcc4 --version reveals it to be gcc4 (GCC) 4.0.0 20041214 (Red Hat
4.0.0-0.14 EL4) Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
The default gcc is gcc 3.4.3 - gcc-3.4.3-9.EL4 - and gcc --version gives gcc
(GCC) 3.4.3 20041212 (Red Hat 3.4.3-9-EL4) This sort of thing may well come
back to bite people, particularly since gcc 3.4.3 was released 2004-11-04
and I could understand people saying "I used the latest version ..."
I stand by my comments earlier in the week that Red Hat inadvertently
alienated many of their best potential customers by handling developers and
end users badly - this flagship corporate release may alienate their current
high paying customers as well. [RH EL4 for i386 - will check amd64 soonest]

GCC 4 Preview in RHEL 4

Posted Feb 24, 2005 0:42 UTC (Thu) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] (5 responses)

Ok, Red Hat has two versions of GCC included with RHEL 4:

1) gcc-3.4.3-9.EL4
and
2) gcc4-4.0.0-0.14.EL4

The package summary for the later is described as, "Preview of GCC version 4.0".

What's so wrong with that?

You have to remember that Red Hat includes Cygnus... which is the core of the gcc development team. Perhaps I'm overstating that but I don't think I am. My point is that Red Hat should know what they are doing with regards to building and shipping gcc.

A couple of years ago there was a big stink because a new release of Red Hat Linux shipped with a brand new GCC... which many people felt was premature... and that particular version lacked backwards binary compatibility of C++. It was touted at the time as some conspiracy by Red Hat to break binary compatibility with other people's C++ packages. Wasn't really that big of a deal. I imagine that is why Bill mentioned that the ABI is compatable for C and C++ in the upcoming gcc 4.

I'm not a developer nor do I play one on TV.

GCC 4 Preview in RHEL 4

Posted Feb 24, 2005 4:25 UTC (Thu) by lakeland (guest, #1157) [Link]

The gcc 2.96 fiasco was a big deal. Programs built on redhat could not be
reliably run on any other distro. It worked 99% of the time, almost as if
the other platform was 'unstable'. For people trying to support two
distros, it was a nightmare.

I disagree with your claim that RH's intimate knowledge of GCC allows them
to choose an unreleased version. Sometimes that familiarity means you can
overlook the weaknesses/lack of polish. Just look at how many people are
still running kernel 2.2 or 2.4 -- many people just don't care about
dozens of better features, just about stability, consistancy and
reliability.

Of course, 2.96 was all a long time ago now, and I really don't see
anything wrong with RH including a preview release of a compiler with
their distro -- just as long as it isn't the default.

GCC 4 Preview in RHEL 4

Posted Feb 24, 2005 10:31 UTC (Thu) by rmyorston (subscriber, #6626) [Link] (1 responses)

Compiler versions, and ABI compatibility, are a big deal, particularly in the commercial world where things tend to move more slowly. We're still living with the consequences of the GCC 3.0 compilers that shipped with RH72 and then were backed out of RH73.

To interoperate with a third-party product we need to use their closed-source C++ libraries, which were built with the RH72 GCC 3.0 compiler. These libraries are compatible with nothing in the modern world. Using them requires a specially tailored build environment and the installation of ancient support libraries on runtime systems.

I'm happy that Red Hat seem to have learned the lesson of the GCC 3.0 debacle and are being suitably cautious in their Enterprise systems but adventurous in Fedora Core.

GCC 4 Preview in RHEL 4

Posted Feb 25, 2005 11:49 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Quoting Richard Stallman, the quote I use in my USENET and mailing list sig:

"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master."

Let some closed source program be your master, and you are forever enslaved to the whims of its master -- until you break free of that closed source bondage, anyway.

Duncan

GCC 4 Preview in RHEL 4

Posted Feb 24, 2005 11:15 UTC (Thu) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link] (1 responses)

Red Hat does include Cygnus - they know what they're doing - no dispute.
As one of the people eagerly waiting for GCC 4.0 (because 3.4.3 has issues on a platform I use at work), I _may_ know what I'm doing :) The issue comes because RH EL is supposed to be unconditionally stable for the enterprise. If you do an rpm -qa gcc* - you see gcc4. Six months from now, when someone needs to build code which has been building quite happily on FC4 with GCC 4.0 - what will they have? - a (potentially buggy)
GCC preview version which isn't tagged _unconditionally_ as such. When developers say "it works for me with GCC 4.0" and it doesn't work on RH EL 4, what then? If a boss says - "We need to keep up with the latest code because it has feature *** which we need" there's pressure to use a prerelease compiler This is not appropriate for a stable distribution for the enterprise which is intended to have a seven year support life: I'd much rather that RH had put in useful stuff like lesstif / OpenSSL development libraries /other libraries.

GCC 4 Preview in RHEL 4

Posted Feb 25, 2005 12:55 UTC (Fri) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

gcc 4 will probably be upgraded on the next service pack of RHEL . So in about 6 monthes or so RHEL users *will* have a decent gcc4 version.

The other alternative is that RHEL only includes the obsolete (a year from now it will become quite obsolete) gcc3.4 .

Fedora Core 4 Test 1 slips [GCC 4 status]

Posted Feb 24, 2005 1:28 UTC (Thu) by dang (guest, #310) [Link]

What Redhat lets you do by provide both compilers is run your production stuff on the known sane compiler, and play in your development sandbox with the new compiler ( with the idea that RHEL5 will ship with the new one and, gee wouldn't it be nice to see where the surprises are ).

I'm not sure why this is such a bad thing.

Fedora Core 4 Test 1 slips [GCC 4 status]

Posted Feb 24, 2005 1:48 UTC (Thu) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876) [Link] (1 responses)

Given Fedora's intent to be a cutting edge, or even experimental, distribution it makes sense they would want to move to GCC 4 early. I am glad though that they are being at least cautious enough to stick with released versions.

RHEL needs to be much more conservative but I like that RHEL4 includes GCC4 as a preview. It is clearly described as such in the RPM description.

Let's be fair. It is not like they compiled the kernel with GCC 4.0 or anything. All the RHEL packages are compiled with 3.4.3. This is not like the 2.96 situation in my opinion.

Not only is it very useful to be able to preview GCC4 as a developer but given the lifetime that RHEL is supposed to have between upgrades it is only good planning to expect that people will want to use GCC4 in RHEL4 eventually. It seems totally sane that someone might want to use Fortran 95 under RHEL4 a year from now for example. This allows that to happen within a standard RHEL4 installation without requiring the the default system compiler moved to a newer version.

You can install the two GCC packages at the same time. Typing 'gcc' will get you gcc-3.4.3 and typing 'gcc4' will get you gcc-4.0.0.

Because you have to type 'gcc4' to get the new compiler I doubt anybody innocent enough to make the kind of mistake you predict is likely even to find gcc4. Your standard Makefile will be looking for 'gcc' and find gcc-3.4.3 for example (or nothing if the standard 'gcc' is not installed).

As for alienation, I would like to point out that RHEL4 includes compatibility libraries for 2.96 so even that past decision should not cause any problems for current RH customers.

RH makes their share of mistakes. I am glad to see them admit to some of them now. I am glad that the community works to actively keep RH and the other vendors in line. I do not think that we are served however by projecting a cloud over the company or whipping up negative hype for no reason.

Fedora Core 4 Test 1 slips [GCC 4 status]

Posted Feb 24, 2005 3:31 UTC (Thu) by jwboyer (guest, #23296) [Link]

The gcc4 package is available on Fedora Core 3. Where do you think RHEL4 got it from? :).