RFC: x86: kill binutils 2.16.x?

[Segher Boessenkool]

> The problem is not with the kernel compile itself, but with the 2.12
> "dssall" binutils test.  Basically, recent binutils treats e500 as
> effectively a separate architecture that happens to share *most* of
> the opcodes with regular PowerPC.  Any opcode which is not understood
> by the e500 chip is either convert to an equivalent opcode which is
> understood (IE: lwsync => sync), or failed with an error.  This means
> that the kernel compile aborts early telling me to upgrade to a newer
> version of binutils.

$ echo dssall | powerpc-linux-as -many -me500
$ powerpc-linux-objdump -d a.out | grep 0:
   0:   7e 00 06 6c     dssall
$ powerpc-linux-as --version | head -1
GNU assembler (GNU Binutils) 2.21.51.20110309


What version of binutils does not work?  (I also checked with
-me500x2, -me500mc, -mspe, and various combinations.  lwsync
is indeed converted to a regular sync (well, "msync") for e500
and e500x2).


Segher