[Ros-general] A couple points and a question

[Guido]

On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 10:34:07 -0500
Vizzini <vizzini at plasmic.com> wrote:

[snip]

> Linux used to require GCC 2.7.2.3 - i don't know what it asks for now,
> but the reason had to do with a combination of compiler bugs that had
> been worked around and some insulation against future upsetting
> changes.

Hmmm, that was a long time ago, you must be almost as old as I am ;-)
Anyway, IIRC that was during the EGCS fork and the linux kernel would
not compile on that beast. Later when EGCS and GCC hadmerged again and
the GCC 3.x series was being developed, the linux kernel still required
GCC 2.95. Today many packages require patches for compilation with GCC
3.3.x.

To make a long story short, dependancy on a certain building environment
is very common. ReactOS is no exception.

[snip]

> With that said, I propose that we go the Microsoft route, but provide
> instructions for people that want to experiment with other stuff.  We
> should have an official version of the compiler, linker, binutils,
> etc, and an official w32api version.  If anybody has time, it'd be
> nice to package the ReactOS SDK/DDK with the tools, headers, libs, and
> so on, so that new developers can come up to speed more quickly.

At present the tools et al are available in separate packages from the
ReactOS website. IMO repackaging into a development kit is a good idea.

- Guido