Older gcc for MacOS

[Chris Johns]

On 20/1/2022 8:32 am, Joel Sherrill wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 3:00 PM Chris Johns <chrisj at rtems.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 8/1/22 9:34 am, Joel Sherrill wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 4:17 PM Chris Johns <chrisj at rtems.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 8/1/22 8:28 am, Ryan Long wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> Our MacOS VM is failing to build several of the tools on the RTEMS 5 branch. We
>>>>> think that using an older version of gcc should get all of the tools to build. I
>>>>> tried build gcc-4.8 with the RSB, but I get the following error.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> tester at VM-MacOS bare % ../source-builder/sb-set-builder
>>>>> --prefix=${HOME}/rtems-cron-5/tools/gcc-48 gnu-tools-4.8.2
>>>>> RTEMS Source Builder - Set Builder, 5 (6225eadda1de modified)
>>>>> Build Set: gnu-tools-4.8.2
>>>>> error: gnu-tools-4.8.2:24: cannot find file: devel/gcc-4.8.2-newlib-cvs-1
>>>>> Build Set: Time 0:00:00.000607
>>>>> Build FAILED
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Does anyone know how to get these tools to build?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It looks like the recipe has rotted.
>>>
>>> Was there a native gcc recipe? The name includes newlib which would
>>> imply it is intended for use with RTEMS.
>>
>> The `bare/config` tree had recipes to build bare metal tool chains.
>>
>>> Also clearly old with cvs in the name.
>>>
>>> Having the ability to build an older gcc would ease the burden of
>>> using 5 on newer FreeBSD, Linux, etc with stricter compilers. As
>>> with everything, doing it with the RSB gives us control.
>>
>> Yes but do we want to head down that path?
> 
> What's the alternative? Updating the tools on older branches?

I do not fully understand the reason to build these old and now rotted gcc versions?

> The host environments and the released RTEMS versionN build requirements
> are two different sets which should overlap nicely at a point at time but
> as OSes update and the RTEMS build requirements stay fixed, things go
> downhill.

Yes and Apple have been aggressive in pushing users forward and that is not helping.

Chris