On Wed, 11 May 2016, Ralf Baechle wrote: > I was wondering if we should simply probe for the availability of the > GCC option and not use it, if using an older GCC, then change the > help text for the option accordingly. This approach would allow > make randconfig or similar to work as expected with older compilers. Well, if the default is `optimal' anyway, then I think we can simply omit the option unless someone has requested an override. In which case I think the compilation should fail if the option is not supported, under the principle of the least surprise -- if someone has requested a feature, then they ought to be informed that it is absent rather than silently fooled into thinking it has been enabled while in fact it has not. I agree probing for the presence of the option requested and then failing gracefully (e.g. "Toolchain feature FOO not available, please upgrade or reconfigure without BAR" or suchlike) is a better idea than just aborting midway through, and I think `randconfig' and similar validators should be prepared for it and handle gracefully as well (i.e. not a kernel bug). FWIW, Maciej
