compiling 2.5 kernel for ppc64

[Gary Byers]

Hi.

Earlier today, I:

- built and installed binutils for ppc64, from current RedHat CVS sources
- built and installed gcc for pppc64, from current GCC 3.3 CVS sources +
   the latest (20030326) 3.3 patch from penguinppc64.org
- tried to build kernel 2.5.66 from ftp.kernel.org

I'd gone through (then current) versions of the first two steps a month
or so ago, and was able to build a 64-bit 2.4.21-pre4 kernel.

This attempt failed; many files in the 2.5.66 source tree generated
spurious-looking errors to the effect that "`asm' operand requires
spurious reload".  (They seem spurious because - in the cases I
checked - there didn't seem to be any asm constructs anywhere
near/involved in the reported error.  I confess that I may not have
looked hard enough.)

I configured the kernel by doing "make menuconfig" and accepting the
default config that was generated; it seemed sane (CONFIG_PSERIES,
CONFIG_SMP, etc.) for this system (a dual-processor 43P-260 POWER3.).

I -assume- that people have compiled recent versions of the 2.5 kernel
with recent gcc/binutils on ppc64, and that there's something suspect
about the way that the compiler (most likely) was built in my case.

I'll certainly look into that, but wanted to ask: are there known
problems with this kernel/compiler combination ?  (e.g., kernel 2.5
sources from kernel.org known to triger ppc64 compiler bugs, but
sources from some other source patched to work around them ? or
something like that ...)

I admit that it seems most likely that I botched something in the
build process, but it seems worth asking ...

Thanks.

Gary Byers
gb at clozure.com


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