Source: linux
Version: 3.2.23-1
Severity: important
User: debian-alpha@lists.debian.org
Usertags: alpha
Tags: patch
X-Debbugs-CC: debian-alpha@lists.debian.org
Justification: Fails to build from source but built in the past.

linux no longer builds on Alpha due to the demise of gcc-4.5 in unstable.

We will have to move to the default compiler (gcc-4.6) but using gcc-4.6
to build the kernel results in relocation errors against the sbss
section during the link. This can be worked around by modifying the
-msmall-data compiler argument in arch/alpha/Makefile to -mlarge-data.
It means extra CPU instructions to access kernel global variables thus a
slightly larger and less efficient kernel. I did try to ask the gcc
Alpha maintainer why using gcc-4.6 should have such an effect but did
not get back a particularly informative answer.

So if you could remove the requirement to build the kernel with gcc-4.5
and apply the attached patch to switch to the large data model for the
next linux source upload, I should be grateful.

Cheers
Michael.

On Sun, 2012-08-26 at 15:01 +1200, Michael Cree wrote:
[...]
> So if you could remove the requirement to build the kernel with gcc-4.5
> and apply the attached patch to switch to the large data model for the
> next linux source upload, I should be grateful.

Applied, thanks.

Ben.

--
Ben Hutchings
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Albert Einstein