Since it was probably me that initiated this I should clarify.
1. We should NOT remove gcc-2.96 from any machine so long as there is code
which will only compile with this version.
2. We should have gcc-3.2 available on as many computers as possible so
that people can develop, test, and run codes and also use it with ROOT,
GEANT, etc.
3. We should encourage people to use gcc-3.2 and change any old code to run
with gcc-3.2 as it is more inline with the standard, fixes bugs in the
older versions, and does produce better code.
Note that gcc-2.96 is just what was shipped with Redhat 7.1 about three
years ago. Version 3.2 has been out for about 1 year and is the current
production version (actually 3.2.3) the development branch is 3.3 which we
should not install or use until it is released for production.
Just for amusement I append a page from the gcc web site about 2.96
October 6th, 2000
It has come to our attention that some GNU/Linux distributions are
currently shipping with ``GCC 2.96''.
We would like to point out that GCC 2.96 is not a formal GCC release nor
will there ever be such a release. Rather, GCC 2.96 has been the code-
name for our development branch that will eventually become GCC 3.0.
Current snapshots of GCC, and any version labeled 2.96, produce object
files that are not compatible with those produced by either GCC 2.95.2 or
the forthcoming GCC 3.0. Therefore, programs built with these snapshots
will not be compatible with any official GCC release. Actually, C and
Fortran code will probably be compatible, but code in other languages, most
notably C++ due to incompatibilities in symbol encoding (``mangling''), the
standard library and the application binary interface (ABI), is likely to
fail in some way. Static linking against C++ libraries may make a binary
more portable, at the cost of increasing file size and memory use.
To avoid any confusion, we have bumped the version of our current
development branch to GCC 2.97.
Please note that both GCC 2.96 and 2.97 are development versions; we do not
recommend using them for production purposes. Binaries built using any
version of GCC 2.96 or 2.97 will not be portable to systems based on one of
our regular releases.
If you encounter a bug in a compiler labeled 2.96, we suggest you contact
whoever supplied the compiler as we can not support 2.96 versions that were
not issued by the GCC team.
Cheers,
Douglas
26-415 M.I.T. Tel: +1 617 258 7199
77 Massachusetts Avenue Fax: +1 617 258 5440
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA E-mail: hasell@mit.edu
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