Re: Building and install GCC 8.3.0, OpenBSD 7.2 on DEC Alpha EV5

[Mark Butt <mark@markwbutt.com>]

Thanks Segher!
I tried 12.2 a few days ago but I am getting errors that I think are about the compiler that comes with OpenBSD being too old to build 12.2.
I haven't given up yet, but I think I need to reinstall OpenBSD for sanity sake to make sure I haven't messed something up over the weeks of trying to figure it out.
This morning I found a great article about how to build gcc for an Alpha emulated VM running Tru64.  I am going to try to roughly translate what I can in to OpenBSD to see if that helps.
I do have Tru64 on another set of SCSI disks so I might give it a go... just to see if the steps work for a stock Tru64 5.1b.

When I started this small project I didn't think it would much trouble at all.  I had assumed modern OpenBSD would be similar to using something like modern AIX which supports a lot of GNU-linked products very well... either that was a poor assumption on my part, I am doing something wrong, the Alpha architecture (yes, ancient I know) or a combination of several of those.

When I do have a working GCC installation I will report back with the steps required to get there.  Incase anyone else happens to feel the need to compile GCC on an old Alpha.
I am thinking I am getting close...  GCC is building it seems, but encounters errors during the subsequent steps.  It complains that it cannot create executables. 

I did notice that the configure script is detecting the host as:  alpha-unknown-openbsd7.2
Does anyone know if that looks right or if I should be manually specifying the host type?

Again, thanks all for the help and taking the time to respond.
-M

----- Original Message -----
From: "Segher Boessenkool" <segher@kernel.crashing.org>
To: "Jeff Law" <jeffreyalaw@gmail.com>
Cc: "Mark Butt" <mark@markwbutt.com>, "Jonathan Wakely" <jwakely.gcc@gmail.com>, "gcc-help" <gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org>
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2023 2:28:45 PM
Subject: Re: Building and install GCC 8.3.0, OpenBSD 7.2 on DEC Alpha EV5

On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 11:40:46AM -0700, Jeff Law via Gcc-help wrote:
> On 1/22/23 10:37, Mark Butt wrote:
> >No, there is no reason to be at 8.3.0 other than this was the minimum 
> >required.  I thought that I might have better luck getting 8.3 to work vs
> >a newer version given the age of the hardware, I will, however, try a 
> >newer version as suggested.
> >
> >Would you recommend going with a particular version or just get the latest 
> >and greatest?
> I'd just go with the latest release.    You could go with one of the 
> weekly development snapshots, but that may introduce problems you don't 
> want to deal with.

Yes.  And some things that have been fixed in the newest release series
have not been fixed in older ones, for various reasons (too dangerous,
too difficult, compared with expected benefit).  And nothing is fixed
anymore in release series that have reached end of life of course (so
everything before GCC 10, currently).

If you have no particular reason to want something older (or newer), use
the latest released version?  That is GCC 12.2 now.  The main reason to
use an older release series is if you already were using it :-)


Segher