From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Dec 21 11:18:14 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BE7301065692 for ; Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:18:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from alex@mailinglist.ahhyes.net) Received: from mail10.syd.optusnet.com.au (mail10.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.132.191]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 42BC98FC1A for ; Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:18:13 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [172.16.0.1] (c122-106-5-82.rivrw1.nsw.optusnet.com.au [122.106.5.82]) by mail10.syd.optusnet.com.au (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id nBLBIBV0027571 for ; Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:18:12 +1100 Message-ID: <4B2F5973.8050003@mailinglist.ahhyes.net> Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:18:11 +1100 From: alex User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20090817) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: ld-elf related problems X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:18:14 -0000 b. f. wrote: > Our base system compiler suite is stuck at a patched version of gcc > 4.2 because of licensing issues Thats absolutely *ridiculous* that we have to use stone age development tools because of stupid and trivial license politics. This matter was also bought up in a recent thread by myself regarding binutils, seeing that the version of binutils that ships with freebsd is incapable of compiling applications like mplayer on amd64. Is this the reason why people are pushing for llvm, just to avoid the GPL license type of later releases of the gnu c compiler and tools? Thats really sad. llvm has a long way to go before it can be considered a worthy competitor against gcc. The newer versions of gcc probably produce better code than the ancient version shipped with freebsd. Yeah I am aware you can install newer versions from ports, but it is ridiculous to do this and it doesnt always work as planned (like the OP of this thread shows), I tried to use gcc44 in the past, most things compiled ok, I was having these sort of problems too with some binaries when running them, undefined symbols etc. Linux is going to leave us for dust at this rate. The recent phoronix benchmarks comparing the recently released freebsd 8 against linux and solaris should be enough of an incentive to get this issue sorted. I am certain the OS will benefit from being compiled with a current version of gnu compiler. It just seems like nobody wants to address this issue, the word stagnation comes to mind.