[KLUG Members] Re: Star Office 6.0 Beta Expiration -- use the "gcc3" RPMs from RH72

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Thu, 2002-01-31 at 07:26, Dennis wrote:
> I am currently using OpenOffice 6.41c and liking the spell checker and
> Thesaurus that have been added since 6.38.

The only problem I've had with OpenOffice "Build 641c" (not "version
6.41c" ;-) so far is the inability of the Linux version to open RTF
(known bug).

> I have also downloaded the source from CVS and have updated a couple
> times, but I cannot compile it yet. The OpenOffice build requirements:
> http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/build_linux.html#BuildRequirements
> say I need gcc 3.0.2. Previously they wanted 2.95, (for OO 6.38), but I
> am using gcc-2.96-81. I now have all the other requirements to build
> OpenOffice. Does anyone know of an rpm or src.rpm for gcc-3.0.2 that
> should work on RedHat 7.1?

Try the ones included in RedHat 7.2.  Should work.  "gcc3".

> Or do I have to compile gcc-3.0.2 from source?

You could do that as well.  Again, I'd try the ones included in RedHat
7.2.  In the worst case, they may need to be compiled from SRPM
(.src.rpm).  It _should_ work being built by GCC 2.96 -- but I'm not
positive.

> My only hesitation about compiling and installing gcc-3.0.2 is
> if it doesn't work for other stuff, like Mozilla and etc., it looks like
> a lot of work to get 2.96 back.

You can use both.  RedHat purposely calls the binaries "gcc3" to
differentiate in 7.x.  You can also call it with "gcc -V 3.02". 
Otherwise, GCC 2.96 is still the default in 7.x.

> Or, does anyone know of a workaround so that gcc-2.96-81 will work with
> OpenOffice?

If they are using 3.02, there is a good reason.

GCC 2.96 = ORIGINAL DEVELOPMENT 3.0X BRANCH

GCC 2.96 was the original, internal-only designation for the 3.0
development branch.  RedHat needed various GCC 3.0 features (e.g.,
Itanium targetability) in RedHat 7.x, so they went with the 3.0
development tree for the 7.0 release.  They extensively tested it and it
worked well, for most C code, but still had all sorts of backward
compatibility issues with C++.

When RedHat 7.0 was released, the Cygnus team who maintains GCC (who is
actually a division of RedHat ;-), decided to increment the internal
version to 2.97.

GCC 3.0X RELEASES

GCC 3.0 was released about six months later.  Each GCC 3.0x release has
improved backward compatibility.  Most people are very happy with 3.02
now, which was released last October.  GCC 3.03 was released on December
20th and I predict RedHat will use it as the basis of 8.x.  GCC 2.96
(which is, again, the original 3.0x development branch) and 3.0x are
more binary API compatible than GCC 2.91 and 2.95 for the most part.

GNU GCC AND CYGNUS EGCS MERGE

GCC 3.0x is the final fusion of the old Cygnus egcs compiler into GCC. 
2.91.66 was the GCC designation for egcs 1.1.2 and, until recently, was
the _only_ compiler officially supported for kernel builds.  GCC 2.95.3
is now the officially supported compiler for kernel builds, but don't be
surprised if GCC 3.03 becomes the official compiler for at least the 2.5
experimental branch soon, possibly a later 2.4.x as well.

Despite Mandrake and a few other distros/versions that shipped it, you
should NOT use GCC 2.95.4.  Despite the designation, it is not well
tested and definately NOT recommended for kernel compilation.  Even
RedHat has tested/modified the GCC 2.96 "bastard" far better for kernel
compatibility.

SEEING THE GOOD

Heck, the whole GCC "2.9" series was an experimental/code merge mess!
;-P  But the development [understandably] took so long, that so many
people used 2.95 and other releases, even though 2.91.66 was the only
real "semi-official" release (because it was just egcs 1.1.2).  The
upside of this is that we've got a well-tested GCC 3.0x release --
largely because of RedHat's 2.96 adoption in 7.x.

> I would really like to _stress test_ this machine with an OpenOffice
> compile. It will compile Mozilla from CVS in a little less than an hour
> and I am expecting that OpenOffice will take about 6 to 10 hours but
> will never know until I do it once.

That's where a dual-Athlon with 1GB of RAM comes in nice.  ;-PPP

-- Bryan

-- 
Bryan J. Smith, Engineer        mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.     http://www.linux-wlan.org
SmithConcepts, Inc.          http://www.SmithConcepts.com
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