amd64 and -fPIC

Hi,

unlike other architectures amd64 _needs_ -fPIC for libraries. (most other
architectures just benefit from it but can also use libraries compiled
without -fPIC.)

So we had some patches in submaster to add -fPIC (most of them from fake
and clemy) - some of them have been applied already. After some discussions
with fake we decided that it's not a nice solution to clutter up the build
environment with -fPIC enforcement code.

First some facts:

	* A library compiled without -fPIC is considered harmful.

	* A binary compiled with -fPIC does no harm (the code is a bit
	  slower - but not much).

	* Only some packages with libraries have a clean -fPIC handling.
	  They either use -fPIC for everything or for nothing.

	* Patching packages with binaries and libraries so only the code
	  which is used in the libraries is compiled with -fPIC is very
	  hard.

And here comes the solution we propose:

	* We extend the .cache file format so it also has a list of
	  binaries and libraries which are part of the package (this would
	  be needed for some other things - such as "rocket search" - too).

	* On architectures which can handle non-pic libraries, nothing
	  special happens.

	* On architectures which can't handle non-pic libraries, all
	  packages with shared objects listed in their .cache file are
	  compiled with -fPIC via

		var_append GCC_WRAPPER_INSERT " " "-fPIC"

		in a 'prepare' hook registered in
		package/base/gcc/parse-config

	* A special variable can be set in the package .conf file to
	  disable the 'prepare' hook.

please send your comments.

yours,
 - clifford

--
  _________  ____ __      __  $_ = q 7nz!y="Ccv'Dpgiutvcbb'oj'Pocj'*'qqq[
 / ___/ __ \/ __ `/ | /| / /  ej`q[iv`";!|=1;!y=~t%].[%nz!z=!1;gps]1..6[{
/ /__/ / / / /_/ /| |/ |/ /   qsjou"!z\c";tfmfdu]voefg,voefg,voefg,0.05[;
\___/_/ /_/\__, / |__/|__/    !z=~t/].[/dis]pse]!1[^!_[/fh;}qsjou !z;%fh;
 CCC Wien /____/www.cngw.org  qsjou "\o"7;s/\n//g;y/[b-za]!/)a-z($/;eval;
 
Reality corrupted. Reboot universe? (Y/N).

_______________________________________________
rock-devel mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.rocklinux.net/mailman/listinfo/rock-devel

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFB65ZfPNIEsfpKDdERAghUAJwNAkIaKfZOyzdAzw5Odhgj53j7KACfRaY6
w5X+KZjAAumorwkv/4AUmBc=
=iftc
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----