[Buildroot] [PATCH] package/gdb: add support for gdb 8.0

[Arnout Vandecappelle]

On 12-06-17 09:36, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> On Sun, 11 Jun 2017 23:17:36 +0200, Arnout Vandecappelle wrote:
> 
>>> Applied to master, thanks. Do you intend to send a patch that updates
>>> the default gdb version to 7.12, and drop support for 7.10 ?  
>>
>>  Since we've been discussing version dropping, perhaps it's time to consider gdb
>> as well.
>>
>>  Is there really any reason to support multiple versions of gdb?
>>
>>  If yes, is there a reason to not use the latest version as default?
>>
>>  And the same questions for binutils.
> 
> All this version selection stuff is very historical. I guess one reason
> for it is to allow people to upgrade Buildroot while keeping the same
> toolchain components, which are often quite sensitive to changes.
> That's the main reasoning.

 But in practice this probably won't work. What I've seen with the +- 10
customers who use Buildroot is that they update Buildroot once every 3 years or
so (or they don't update at all). By that time, whatever toolchain version they
were using is already gone. So offering the last 3 versions is possibly not a
useful service for anybody.


> Now, as we have discussed, while such a concern is very valid for gcc,
> it's probably less true for binutils/gdb.

 Well, they both are a sensitive to regressions (especially on "exotic" arches)
and when they break it's kind of fundamental :-)


 Anyway, if we plan to remove the version choice, the first thing to do (for
about a year I'd say) is to default to the latest. Because that may be an
additional reason to offer a choice: because the latest has a good chance of
breaking packages (this is certainly the case for GCC, not sure about binutils,
probably not true for gdb).


 Regards,
 Arnout

-- 
Arnout Vandecappelle                          arnout at mind be
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