[TUHS] Compilers (was Re: Any UNIX With No C In Userland?)

[Doug McIntyre]

On Sat, Mar 01, 2025 at 06:46:46PM -0500, Dan Cross wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 1, 2025 at 6:37 PM Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:
>> Yes. I think so. But I also think that said C compiler wasn't adequate to bootstrap gcc or that there were extra steps / workarounds needed to do that. This was during the K&R -> ANSI cutover that Sun did this as well, and the old compiler was definitely K&R only.
> 
> It's been years but I remember bootstrapping gcc with the `cc` that
> came with SunOS (was it in /usr/ucb? For some reason that sticks in my
> memory). I don't recall additional workaround steps, though perhaps
> one had to install other GNU utilities?


In that time period, the gcc distribution had a special bootstrap
version (older version?) of itself that was capable specificly of
being able to be compiled by the cc that SunOS shipped with that was
intended to compile the kernel bits shipped to configure in new limits/drivers, etc. 

The first stages of getting gcc compiled on SunOS was compiling that bootstrap
version of itself, and then using that bootstraped special version of gcc to then compile
the regular/up-to-date version of gcc.

Eventually after some gcc major version, it stopped supporting/bundling this special bootstrap
version, and dropped support for bootstrapping itself up on SunOS.