Re: [avr-gcc-list] Building from Sources

[E. Weddington]

On 27 Apr 2004 at 8:56, Alex Shepherd wrote:

> Hi Guys,
> 
> Normally I use the WinAVR bundle, but recently I needed to run the
> AVR-GCC toolset on Linux, so I simply got the sources and build scripts
> from the links in one of the recent posts on this list.
> 
> I built it fine and it seems to work ok.
> 
> My question is how _should_ I go about maintaining an up to date version
> of the AVR-GCC compiler?
> 
> Do you guys use CVS or just get source tar balls?

Usually what's in CVS is the "bleeding edge" of development. If you're 
generating patches for projects then you probably want to be familiar with 
getting from CVS. If you just want to use the "latest release" of projects, 
then source tarballs should be fine for you.
 
> Should I be concerned with patches? How would I find out about when I
> need them?

Patches would cover either bugs (probably critical ones) or new features not 
yet in CVS or in a release tarball. When there *are* patches for the AVR 
toolset they are usually discussed here (avr-gcc-list) or on the avr-libc-dev 
list. For example, there has been a lot of discussion recently on avr-libc-dev 
about patches to avr-libc, gcc, and binutils to add new AVR devices to the 
toolset. If you're interested in using these devices, then you could grab these 
patches and try them out. If you don't care about these new devices, you can 
wait until they eventually make it into their projects' CVS and eventually to a 
release tarball. Sometimes, a patch is needed to get a particular release of 
gcc to build correctly, but this is rare; the patch is usually quickly added in 
gcc CVS. In these cases you might not find out about it unless you peruse GCC's 
bug database. Sometimes, though, they're discussed here.

So there's no single way to find out. 

HTH