ANN: gcc-ssa RPM packages available for FC2

[Diego Novillo]

For the past couple of years we have been overhauling GCC to make it
possible to compete against highly optimizing compilers like icc and
open64.  This has meant adding new internal representations and
algorithms that are common in the literature, but GCC didn't know
existed.

For those interested in more details about the project, the new
infrastructure is based on the Static Single Assignment (SSA)
representation.  The project home page contains links to papers,
development plan, API documentation and various presentations
(http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/tree-ssa).

This work is tentatively scheduled to become part of GCC for the 3.5
release.  Right now we are at a point where it should be possible to
build non-trivial applications with the new compiler, but it is still
full of bugs.  So, we need volunteers to try it on things like the
kernel, libraries, applications and give us feedback via Bugzilla.

We have added snapshots of the tree-ssa branch to Fedora Core 2.  The
RPM packages are built for several architectures: x86, amd64, ppc and
ia64.

To avoid clashes with the system compiler, the suffix -ssa is added to
all the binaries and the libraries go into a separate directory.  So,
installing these RPMs will not overwrite the system compiler.

The plan is to update the snapshot every now and then.  Probably every
other week or so.  Since these RPMs are slated for Fedora Core 2, which
is not yet released, you will find them in the development section of
the Fedora site:

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development/

I am also mirroring the latest x86 RPMs in my home page.  It is not
necessary to download all the RPMs, just the ones for the front end that
you're interested in.

http://people.redhat.com/dnovillo/pub/tree-ssa-snapshot/RPMS/

The current release is based on a 2003-12-03 snapshot.  The usual
caveats:

     1. This is alpha software.  Do not even try using it in a
        production environment.
     2. Although these RPMs use pristine upstream sources, do not report
        bugs to the FSF Bugzilla.  Use http://www.redhat.com/bugzilla/
        to report bugs in the gcc-ssa RPMS.


Diego.