downgrading gcc, gentoo

cheater1034 · 08-05-2004, 02:00 PM

is there a way to downgrade gcc, the current is 3.4, which is terrible, i want gcc 2.95, i want to know if there is a way to downgrade it with emerge, or if I have to do it from source

spuzzzzzzz · 08-07-2004, 02:08 AM

The current stable version seems to be 3.3.3-r6, which is probably the way to go. I have heard very bad things about gcc 2.x and I don't think gentoo supports it (its marked unstable, anyway). If you really want to install 2.95, try

Code:

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~x86 emerge -av =gcc-2.95.3-r8

however, I would recommend

Code:

emerge -av gcc

to downgrade to the latest stable version.

320mb · 08-07-2004, 02:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by spuzzzzzzz
The current stable version seems to be 3.3.3-r6, which is probably the way to go. I have heard very bad things about gcc 2.x and I don't think gentoo supports it

here is a quote from the Linux from Scratch people......

Quote:

This is an older release of GCC which we are going to install for the purpose of compiling the Linux kernel in Chapter 8. This version is recommended by the kernel developers when you need absolute stability. Later versions of GCC have not received as much testing for Linux kernel compilation. Using a later version is likely to work, however, we recommend adhering to the kernel developer's advice and using the version here to compile your kernel.

they were talking about gcc 2.95.........so
why would gentoo not support a GCC version with absolute stability???

spuzzzzzzz · 08-07-2004, 06:46 AM

Quote:

why would gentoo not support a GCC version with absolute stability???

I certainly wouldn't know--I only use it. But 2.95 is marked unstable, and I have had problems before while installing unstable development packages. I am certainly not an expert on compilers, but I'm pretty sure I've read rants about gcc 2.x before. Not that that's a great way to judge a piece of software, but still...

You could always compile it yourself or grab a binary package from somewhere. However, I'm not sure I see the point. The kernel developers say that gcc3.3 works to compile the kernel, but that it might not be suitable for production environments. But if you're running a server or something you'd probably be better of with RHEL or debian or something. Although I like gentoo a lot, stability doesn't seem to be one of its main goals.

crashmeister · 08-07-2004, 07:05 AM

It's probably in unstable because some of the new ebuilds might use compile options that are not available with the 2.x series of gcc which then might lead to ebuilds not working ok.