Old compilers, new kernels [LWN.net]

Old compilers, new kernels

Posted Mar 5, 2018 6:37 UTC (Mon) by fratti (subscriber, #105722)
Parent article: Shedding old architectures and compilers in the kernel

Are there any users who would conceivably build brand-spanking new kernels with decade-old compilers? Aside from appeasing archaeologists 1000 years from now trying to piece together what lead to humanity's downfall and running into issues dating fragments of our past, I can't really think of a user that would use an old compiler without also using an old kernel. Perhaps I'm not familiar enough with the embedded vendor landscape to know the restrictions they have to live by though.

Old compilers, new kernels

Posted Jun 3, 2018 14:11 UTC (Sun) by dps (guest, #5725) [Link]

You are clearly out of touch with far too many production systems. The idea of upgrading from long unsupported old releases of things, like python 2.3, very old sshd, etc with known unfixed security issues is anathema. I would advocate using current stable versions but that was not my pigeon and it was feared hat some bugs might be revealed. Actually fixing those bugs would obviously be the wrong thing.

I have extensive experience of not using things which are clearly the right thing because the production environment is sufficiently ancient that it is not supported. Let it suffice to say that this experience was obtained at multiple very large software companies.

I would not worry about the lack of spectre mitigation on those boxes because there are so many easier ways of owning them.