gcc compilers to be supported by Macports, especially on older MacOS systems

[Ken Cunningham]

On 2024-11-20, at 2:21 PM, Chris Jones wrote:

> Hi,
> 
>> On 20 Nov 2024, at 10:00 pm, Ken Cunningham <ken.cunningham.webuse at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Glad everyone gets to weigh in. If we can get a consensus to do this, we'll try to do it as smartly as possible.
>> 
>> Any gcc compilers that come "free" -- ie don't contribute anything in libgcc and so are just "no-ops" -- we can consider keeping those. However, they still might get pulled in needlessly if they exist, according to the compilers dependency rules.
>> 
>> For example, as Riccardo said, if gcc10 can build it, but gcc13 exists, then gcc13 might get pulled in unnecessarily to build it.
> 
> If gcc13 is available and can be used to successfully build a port, then why would you want to use gcc10 ?


> 
> The logic in the compilers PG etc. as to which compilers are picked to use is to always favour the most recent that is available (and not blacklisted). This logic will minimise deps needed as gcc13 only needs libgcc13 and libgcc14 whereas gcc 10 would need libgcc(10-12) in addition. So i think this is the right logic.

OOTH: If gcc10 is available and installed, why would you want to call in a full build of gcc13 unnecessarily to build the port?


The GCC situation on macports is overloaded with compilers. 

If a system can use a buildbot, it matters less (although lots of people are in situations where they can't use a buildbot).

On older systems, the situation is crippling, however.

Just trying to make something that can work.