Text 5022, 86 rader
Skriven 2006-01-17 23:55:10 av Maurice Kinal (1:261/38.9)
   Kommentar till text 5021 av Kenneth Parrish (8:8/2)
Ärende: Re: gcc 4.1
===================
Hey Kenneth!

Jan 17 16:01 06, Kenneth Parrish wrote to Maurice Kinal:

 KP> gcc 4.0.2 is the latest i've seen,

It's considered a release.

 KP> and i do have a copy here from a 
 KP> friend's having lent me the use of their internet connection, and 
 KP> made a mini-cdr with it for me.

I built one of those using ttylinux as the initrd and have the development
stuff tar/gzipped ready for installing onto a partiton.  It was just a tad too
beefy for a 'live' system on a mini-cdr but I think now I could fit it on as
long as only the basics are needed for such a critter.

 KP> with the some of the special processor configurations in 
 KP> gcc-4.0.2/gcc/config/i386/i386.c and compiling just the 'c' 
 KP> component, and installing having specified
 KP> --prefix=/usr/local/gcc4.0.2 so everything goes to
 KP> its own directory tree thus allowing easy removal and concurrent use 
 KP> of my slackware packaged versions,

I used to do it that way except that the rest of the tools (eg binutils)
weren't always in sync and would have to bootstrap different tools and libs to
/usr/local/gcc-{whatever} as well.  It turned out that having unique chrootable
enviroments was far less hassel and work better, or at least when they work. 
Now that I can get a chrootable c enviroment in under 100M I think this is even
more desirable.

 KP> -march=i586 and -O2, i think, from this and other
 KP> tests, it's fair to conclude gcc c compiler through v4.0.2 has never 
 KP> produced optimal code *always* for the cyrix mii.

Same here with compiling on the dual p3 system for a c3 using -march=i686 which
does work on the c3 when compiled there.  However i486 works across the board,
including actual 486's, p3's and c3's.  That is another reason I wanted to test
the microperl with i486 optimizations and see if that performs as well as a
i686 optimized microperl built directly on the c3.  Mind you it really doesn't
matter since any clustered builds will have to be optimized to the weakest link
- an actual 486 - in order to take advantage of shared cpu's for that
particular cause.

 KP> but, i don't know 
 KP> what tradeoffs there may be, so perhaps it's the best compromise.

If you are just building for a specific machine on that machine then
optimizations are great.  Greater care is needed if the target cpu differs from
the main compiling machine(s).  In my particular case I want to use the smp and
c3 to share their abilties with the 486, or whatever else I throw into the mix,
so I chose i486 when creating packages but always optimize for particular
machine's abilities when they are the target.  A real boar's nest for sure but
much fun ... sort of.  ;-)

 KP> i don't have the information to best change the machine description 
 KP> and i386.c files to better model this processor's variations from the 
 KP> pentium and pentium pro (it seems to be somewhere in between, with 
 KP> elements of the pentium II and i486).

I think i486 is a safe bet for archived, installable packages.  For backed up
toolchains I usually have them optimized for the machine it was intended for,
usually -march=pentium3 for the dual guy and i686 wehen actually built on and
for the c3 guy.  Overall that works the best here but is a real hassel for
sure.

 MK>> fantastic.  I noticed that when compiling X the source there seemed
 MK>> to have no problem with microperl when using it to format.  X also
 MK>> compiled without any perl, micro or otherwise.

 KP> there may be a couple of font conversion steps that dont complete 
 KP> without perl, i dunnow.

Something to do with documents and fonts.  The font conversions seem to work
without perl but perhaps slower.  I never bothered to benchmark it as I just
wanted to see if it were possible to build X with just the basic tools and
especially if it would be worth it.  In the case of the p3's and gcc-4.0.2 it
definetly was ... with or without perl.  I now consider this my default stable
X install on this machine.  The rest don't need a gui seeing I don't even have
monitors, keyboards or mice attached to any of them.  What for?

Life is good,
Maurice

--- Msged/LNX 6.1.2
 * Origin: The Pointy Stick Society Headquarters - Ladysmith BC Ca (1:261/38.9)