gcc 8 has declared powerpc*-*-*spe* obsolete, needing --enable-obsolete

[Justin Hibbits]

Hi Mark,


On Sun, May 6, 2018 at 4:31 PM, Mark Millard via freebsd-ppc
<freebsd-ppc at freebsd.org> wrote:
> https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-8/changes.html reports:
>
>         • Support for the powerpc*-*-*spe* target ports which have been recently unmaintained and untested in GCC has been declared obsolete in GCC 8 as announced here. Unless there is activity to revive them, the next release of GCC will have their sources permanently removed.
>
>
> Side note: Mixed with clang's powerpc family status for buildworld,
> such as ignoring __builtin_eh_return so that thrown C++ exceptions
> will not work for the world so built, powerpc*-*-*spe* looks to
> have a substantial toolchain problems going forward.
>
> ===
> Mark Millard
> marklmi26-fbsd at yahoo.com
> ( dsl-only.net went
> away in early 2018-Mar)

I'm aware that gcc8 is deprecating powerpc*spe targets.  However, the
architecture itself will exist through at least 2025, as chips are
guaranteed to be produced until at least that time (part of
Freescale/NXP's longevity program).  Also, I have some patches in
review adding SPE support to LLVM, and will likely be committing them
in the next month after I get final reviews and rebase.  I'm hoping
powerpc support gets enhanced to the point of full support before too
long, so we can switch powerpc* targets entirely to clang/llvm.
However, we need compiler people who could invest time into doing the
work.

- Justin