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Distributions compile more than just a kernel. That's just one of several thousand packages we build. Usually the problem (even with something as simple as PIC/
by cyphar 9y ago
Distributions compile more than just a kernel. That's just one of several thousand packages we build. Usually the problem (even with something as simple as PIC/ASLR) is that old projects might have problems compiling.
We just switched openSUSE Tumbleweed to GCC7 a few months ago, and it was a very large amount of work. I can't imagine how much work it would take to switch to LLVM.
- DannyBee 9y agoCounterpoint: We compile more than one entire linux distribution (one is gentoo based, others vary) with llvm with essentially no issues (the number of local patches is incredibly small, and most is actually just buggy code that clang happens to detect, and we are waiting for upstream to accept). Is it work? Sure. But it's not like "years of real work". It's about 5-10 people for a quarter or two.
- cyphar 9y agoIt is definitely possible, but I was saying that switching to LLVM would take a while, and that even GCC updates are painful. 5-10 people for 6 months is a fairly serious time investment for a community project (especially since we have a lot of other things on our plate).