Linux 6.9 To Allow Building s390 Kernel With The Full LLVM/Clang Compiler

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 6.9 To Allow Building s390 Kernel With The Full LLVM/Clang Compiler

Adding to the Linux 6.9 features one of the changes that went under my radar is that the s390 kernel builds can now be carried out using the full LLVM compiler stack...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.9-s390-LLVM-Clang-Build

[Developer12]

LLVM is the future. Every research effort into pushing the limits of what a compiler can do is built on top of LLVM. LLVM is modular and easy to extend, while GCC remains a tangled mess bound up in the whims of stallman (eg. this is directly why every IDE uses libclang for syntax highlighting, rather than GCC).

The only thing keeping GCC in place is inertia and wide architecture support. LLVM supports all the architectures that are in everyday use and more will be added as time goes on. How many architectures have been added to GCC in the last ten years? Twenty?

GCC is destined to become like SDCC, only pulled out when you need to compile code for a legacy architecture that doesn't matter enough to get an LLVM port.

[mrg666]

LLVM is the future. Every research effort into pushing the limits of what a compiler can do is built on top of LLVM. LLVM is modular and easy to extend, while GCC remains a tangled mess bound up in the whims of stallman (eg. this is directly why every IDE uses libclang for syntax highlighting, rather than GCC).

The only thing keeping GCC in place is inertia and wide architecture support. LLVM supports all the architectures that are in everyday use and more will be added as time goes on. How many architectures have been added to GCC in the last ten years? Twenty?

GCC is destined to become like SDCC, only pulled out when you need to compile code for a legacy architecture that doesn't matter enough to get an LLVM port.

That is a lot of LLVM endorsement. But it could be more convincing without GCC bitching.

I used LLVM, building the Linux kernel. It is okay, maybe great. But I do not see GCC generating any worse binary code. Actually, LLVM seems to compile a bit slower and the compiled binary is a bit larger with same compile options.

[kpedersen]

LLVM is the future.
[...]
The only thing keeping GCC in place is inertia and wide architecture support.

I don't disagree. But inertia is a powerful thing. GCC will probably out live anyone alive today then...

And once GCC is gone, and LLVM is looking a bit long in the tooth; I wonder what its successor will be looking like? Potentially another completely different compiler framework to support "quantum processors" with the C language.

[Developer12]

That is a lot of LLVM endorsement. But it could be more convincing without GCC bitching.

I used LLVM, building the Linux kernel. It is okay, maybe great. But I do not see GCC generating any worse binary code. Actually, LLVM seems to compile a bit slower and the compiled binary is a bit larger with same compile options.

Notice how I didn't say anything about how good of a compiler GCC is. They're both "ok."

Everything I said is a direct result of the communities around the two tools.