Re: [Xen-devel] Upping gcc requirement for x86

[George Dunlap <dunlapg@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 9:56 AM, Wei Liu <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 06:33:02PM +0100, George Dunlap wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 6:20 PM, Wei Liu <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 06:14:08PM +0100, George Dunlap wrote:
>> >> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 6:10 PM, Wei Liu <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> > On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 06:05:57PM +0100, George Dunlap wrote:
>> >> >> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 4:45 PM, Wei Liu <wei.liu2@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> >> > Hi all
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > Seabios has bumped their requirement to 4.6 (released 7 years ago). 
>> >> >> > We
>> >> >> > either need to bump our too or have a separate entry for seabios.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> RHEL / CentOS 6 are still supported, and they come with GCC 4.4.
>> >> >
>> >> > Where is this listed in xen.git? Supported in what sense?
>> >>
>> >> Sorry, I realized this was ambiguous just a minute ago.  I meant,
>> >> they're not EOL yet -- the distributions are still "active" as it
>> >> were.  (As opposed to, say, RHEL / CentOS 5, which is EOL.)
>> >>
>> >> I think it makes sense for us as a project to try to support
>> >> distributions which are still being given active support.
>> >
>> > Right. I think that makes sense, but does it actually work like that in
>> > practice?
>> >
>> > Existing Xen packages aren't really going to get a newer Xen, so that's
>> > out of the picture.
>> >
>> > What we try to achieve here is to let the users of these old distro able
>> > to build newer Xen themselves. But suppose you want to build a new
>> > system anyway, why stick with an old distro? Why not use a newer distro
>> > release instead?
>>
>> Who knows why user do what they do? :-)  I'm sure there will be people
>> out there who do it; if it's not a terribly large effort, I think we
>> should try.  It builds good will.
>
> They can still build Xen after we bump the requirement.
>
> RHEL 6 has a life cycle of around 14 years. They aren't going to sit
> on an ancient compiler for all those years.
>
> There is another supported toolchain called Redhat Developer Toolset X
> (current version 6 with gcc 6.2.x). It is one yum command away and
> setting CC= CXX= in their build rune.

Well it's at least 2 yum commands and additional "enable the secondary
compiler" commands away (either CC= or 'scl enable' command).  But
yes, your point is taken.

 -George

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