[473] in Release_7.7_team
What cc should be on the Sun
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Wed Apr 10 19:19:51 1996
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 19:19:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
To: sol24@MIT.EDU, release-team@MIT.EDU
Last Release Team meeting, Mike had the action item of writing up the C
compiler issues. I got impatient and took it away from him. But I did
so AFTER Greg Hudson, Craig Fields, and Mike and I had a long discussion
and thrashed out the issues we saw and converged on a solution we like.
Note: We need to run this by Miki and incorporate her concerns before
this is cast into stone, er system packs.
Summary:
1. The current script named cc in /usr/athena/bin/cc goes away
and is replaced with a script that verifies that sunsoft is attached and
calls suncc.
2. We will continue to build Solaris 2.4 Athena with gcc. We will build
it with the gcc that we install on the packs as /usr/gcc/bin/gcc.
3. Greg Hudson will look at the Athena libraries and identify which ones
may have problems linking with suncc. We will announce that we built
the Athena libraries with gcc and that we recommend building
applications which use the Athena libraries with gcc. We will name the
problem libraries and the symptoms of the problems, and explain the
possible solutions.
4. We should consider putting a convenience symlink in /usr/gcc/lib so
people can easily get libgcc.a and so that imakefiles don't have to
change with every new version of cygnus gcc we integrate into the
release.
The remainder of this note is the rationale for this solution.
Issues:
0. People don't like the current script. (It would have to change
anyway to reflect the current reality.) And unless you add -f of the
locker you will ALWAYS see this stupid script when you say cc.
1. Third party software containing makefiles sometimes assume that "cc"
is the vendor cc. Other tools do this as well.
2. Users of the Gnu C compiler virtually always call it gcc and
virtually NEVER call it cc.
3. The options of gcc and suncc are subtly different so it would be BAD
to call cc gcc because it would confuse users identified in issue 1 and
2 above.
4. Users of gcc would either add cygnus or use /usr/gcc/bin/gcc. We
would advertise that /usr/gcc/bin is the ONE WE BUILT WITH.
5. We are going to continue to build Athena with gcc because that is
what works! Greg Hudson points out that the more platforms we build
Athena on with gcc, the fewer vendor-specific compiler issues will we
face.
6. It would be nice if suncc were not controlled by a license manager.
wdc will investigate this situation. Lack of a license manager is
desired but is not a requirement.
7. Course lockers and current faculty and student practice would not
have to change.
----
Respectfully submitted,
-wdc
