[llvm-dev] Question about compiler-rt builtins targets

[Bruce Hoult via llvm-dev]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 4:15 AM, Chris Bieneman via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> The other thing I wanted to touch on is you mentioned in your email you
> think there is a disconnect in mindset. I think you’re misunderstanding.
> The LLVM community supports very old OS versions. In fact, we still use
> CMake 2.8.12 because that’s what comes on the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. I suspect
> we’ll be moving off that soon as there is a new LTS release imminent, but
> we generally support developing on 2-3 year old OS releases, and deploying
> to even older releases.
>

The version ardi is targeting, OS X 10.6.8, is quite a bit older than that
:-) 10.6 came out in 2009, and the .8 final release in mid 2011. However a
significant number of machines have not been upgraded past it for the
rather annoying reason that it's the last one that supports the built in
"Rosetta" PowerPC emulator. Systems supported by 10.6.8 include reasonably
modern ones such as the quad core Nehalem i7 17" laptop I'm typing this on,
which is not a lot slower than the current models with Haswell. I've got
the latest OS on the aftermarket Samsung Pro SSD, but 10.6.8 is on the
original 750 GB hard disk and I can boot into it any time.

I think it's reasonable to say that an OS version is "supported" in that
the various tools that come with it (or are readily downloadable) are good
enough to build current LLVM.

However, I don't see any reason that you should not be able to run a
compiler which, let's face it, primarily reads a few disk files and writes
other disk files, on anything Unix-like, no matter how old, provided that
the utility programs needed for the build process have already been
installed in a suitable version.

Of course you don't want to have to support system compilers that don't do
C++11, but ardi has already gone to the trouble of making a working LLVM
3.5 for his 10.6.8 system.
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