Please note that this is *not* a Gentoo issue and have been seen by many user user with different machines/architectures. - gcc 3.4 fail to compile some code (it segfaults instead) - it sometimes output errors & warnings on some fully valid code, because it confuses itself while trying to inline some functions (noinline attribute can help for this) - it produces incorect code in some circumstances ! - it silently ignores some attributes, which break some programs. One good example is qemu: get the CVS code. You won't be able to compile x86 emulator, because gcc segfaults during compilation. The ppc target compiles, but the generated program is incorrect so it won't run. Some confirmed the problem exists with gcc 3.4 whatever the distribution is used. I also saw problems for other simpler code (unfortunately, I'm not allowed to publish this code). My conclusion is gcc 3.4.x *should not*, at least for now, be merged as the Gentoo compiler.
thanks for the update? gcc 3.4 produces much better code on amd64, and rejects ugly source that should be fixed anyways. as for the qemu segfault, that's a whole other bug. gcc 3.4 will be the default compiler for the amd64 2004.3 release, but you always have the option of using gcc 3.3. current installs wont get gcc 3.4 unless they switch to a gcc 3.4 profile. i realise this is a big change, and dont want to force users to upgrade.
gcc 3.4 may produce better code in some cases, I won't argue against this. I don't have a tear about buggy code been rejected neither. The problem is that it cannot compile properly some programs that did compile with -Wall -W -Werror for years, crashing, giving _invalid_ errors or warning on perfectly valid code, silently ignores some attributes and even produce executables with some symbols missing ! I repeat, it's not a Gentoo specific issue, not an amd64 specific issue, I did reproduce those problems on x86 and I was told some have been reproduced on PPC. So it seems it's been released before getting stable, like some of the first 3.0 ones. I just wanted to warn that this compiler is unusable for production for now. I'm hopping too those problems will be resolved soon.
