Eric S. Raymond Calls LLVM The "Superior Compiler" To GCC

[SystemCrasher]

I remember they tried to build the Linux kernel with LLVM and Clang and they got pretty far, but not all the way.

How does this look these days?

Let it fload by itself, f..king piece of iron. Last thing I want to see is some proprietary, blob-only SDK/BSP. That's where GCC and Linux rock - thanks for your GPL, mister Stallman. Now world is much better place than it could be otherwise.

[Sonadow]

I remember they tried to build the Linux kernel with LLVM and Clang and they got pretty far, but not all the way.

How does this look these days?

IIRC, some of the patches were mainlined but a huge chunk still isnt.

Generally i don't think the kernel will be Clang-compatible for the forseeable future until Linus and his crew actually makes a collected effort to ensure Clang compatibility.

http://llvm.linuxfoundation.org/index.php/Main_Page has the details.

[uid313]

Let it fload by itself, f..king piece of iron. Last thing I want to see is some proprietary, blob-only SDK/BSP. That's where GCC and Linux rock - thanks for your GPL, mister Stallman. Now world is much better place than it could be otherwise.

What is SDK/BSP?

Compiling the Linux kernel with LLVM doesn't make it any less free.

LLVM is really fast too, so it could be useful for developers who want to re-compile it often.
Also for people like Michael who use the Phoronix Test suite to do regression testing by bisecting. Then it compiles different kernel versions until it finds the regression.

[gnufreex]

What is SDK/BSP?

Compiling the Linux kernel with LLVM doesn't make it any less free.

LLVM is really fast too, so it could be useful for developers who want to re-compile it often.
Also for people like Michael who use the Phoronix Test suite to do regression testing by bisecting. Then it compiles different kernel versions until it finds the regression.

It is fast because it does less optimizations, produces slower code. And yes, in the long run Linux kernel will be less free if it switches to clang. For example it could require proprietary extensions to compile and use GPGPU features and that could pretty much become a stnadard in HPC, which would in turn make Linux proprietary if you want to use it in HPC.

[bitman]

It is fast because it does less optimizations, produces slower code. And yes, in the long run Linux kernel will be less free if it switches to clang. For example it could require proprietary extensions to compile and use GPGPU features and that could pretty much become a stnadard in HPC, which would in turn make Linux proprietary if you want to use it in HPC.

Switch to other opensource compiler wont make it free and you are wrong. If developers would decide to depend on proprietary extensions then it would be less free, here you are right. However noone in their right mind would do so as far as i can see. Besides llvm/clang license is truly about freedom, not about other kind of restricted freedom that gpl presents. But i understand Stallman. Everyone defends his own turf..

[discordian]

It is fast because it does less optimizations, produces slower code. And yes, in the long run Linux kernel will be less free if it switches to clang. For example it could require proprietary extensions to compile and use GPGPU features and that could pretty much become a stnadard in HPC, which would in turn make Linux proprietary if you want to use it in HPC.

Except that the GPL2 required that your code must be build able with a "free" toolchain and everything necessary (scripts) have to be included.

The reason the kernel doesnt build with clang is precisely because of the dominance of gcc and code been written around its strengths, extensions and bugs. Ideally it would be build able with every standards-compliant compiler, that wont be the case ever but getting it to compile with something else than gcc is a nice first step.

[cocklover]

_{No sure but probably this situation wil}

[gnufreex]

It doesn't have to be developer decision, lets say HPC community wants to use HSA enabled processors, with proprietary HSA back-ends. No change in code of Linux, but proprietary compiler based on LLVM would make it run faster.

I beleive that LLVM/Clang stuff is devils business, not gona touch with a ten foot pole.

[gens]

performance of resulting binaries is still better with gcc
(in all but few rare cases)
llvm will catch up, but it will take a lot of time and effort to do so

same with musl as libc
it is a better, cleaner library, but it needs work on platform specific performance of most functions to compete with glibc
that said, you can't switch to musl since some projects use glibc specific... extensions

[bitman]

It doesn't have to be developer decision, lets say HPC community wants to use HSA enabled processors, with proprietary HSA back-ends. No change in code of Linux, but proprietary compiler based on LLVM would make it run faster.

I beleive that LLVM/Clang stuff is devils business, not gona touch with a ten foot pole.

Everyone is free to choose what hardware they want to use. If this would be the case then you have a valid point to not use said hardware. Problemo? After all if we talk about freedom we should not talk about our freedom only. We should talk about everyone's freedom. So people should be able to make their proprietary stuff no matter how evil it might seem.