Re: Wishlist for unfrozen base

["Simon 'corecode' Schubert" <corecode@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hasso Tepper wrote:
> * gcc 3.4 removal. There are two options - remove it entirely or just 
>   disable it by default (it still might be potentially useful, for example 
>   gcc34 in the pkgsrc will never support stack protection). Opinions?

Remove completely.

> * gcc 4.x update. gcc 4.1.2 we use at the moment is too buggy - to the 
>   point where some projects ignore bugreports at all if gcc-4.1.x is in 
>   use (ffmpeg for example). We should decide what path to choose at all 
>   with it though. There is several issues with newer gcc's - there is a 
>   license issue (newer ones at some point use GPLv3) and gcc 4.3 and up 
>   have a more dependencies (do we want all these in the base?).

I don't think we need to care about GPLv3 in the toolchain.  I ported 
gcc-4.4 in pkgsrc wip, so if that compiles base well (not sure if Sascha 
did a whole world/kernel run with it), we could import gcc-4.4.

>   we still
>   have to decide whether it's OK to pull in GMP and MPFR libraries (needed 
>   for 4.3 and up).

That's a pain, yes.  But in the long run we won't have a choice, I think. 
 Porting is probably also only a one-shot thing.

> * binutils update. The very same license issue potentially exists (2.18 
>   and up are under GPLv3), but it would allow to use many performance 
>   improvements introduced in newer versions.

Likewise I think we should move forward there.

> Corecode expressed his view that we shouldn't get rid of libc_r entirely - 
> it's actually good potential testcase and I tend to agree with him. But 
> we should do two things IMHO:
>
> * move both libc_r.so and libthread_xu.so out from /usr/lib so no app has 
>   a chance to link against these directly (yes, corecode, I think now 
>   it's a good idea ;)

Agree.

> * introduce stubs for stuff not in libc_r - barriers, spinlocks and some 
>   more

Will that be sufficient, will it work?

> There are also smaller items in the wishlist like updating ncurses and gdb 
> (hint! ;P), but ... Yeah, I want a pony as well ...

I think I started looking at gdb at some point.  Will have to look again.

cheers
  simon

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