PATCH: Compress debug sections for Linux/x86 by default

[H.J. Lu]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 8:29 PM, Alan Modra <amodra@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 09, 2015 at 05:39:29AM -0800, H.J. Lu wrote:
>> Since debuggers mostly deal with the outputs of linker,
>> they won't even see the compressed debug sections.
>
> Yes, I think some of the worry up-thread was due to thinking your
> patch affected linker output.  Even so, I don't think it is a good
> change.  Relocatable object files are generally temporary;  You
> compile package source, install the final linked binaries, then clean
> up build directories.  An optimisation that reduces temporary file
> size obviously helps with disk storage, and may even reduce link
> time.  However there are some cases where relocatable object files are
> installed, for example, crt*.o, library archives and kernel modules.

Kernel modules don't have compressed debug sections since they
are generated by ld which doesn't output compressed debug
sections.  As for crt*.o and library archives, I would say they should
be older than your binutils.  At least, that is my case.

> If you then try to use those object files with an older toolchain or
> one built without zlib then you'll run into difficulty.

We can require zlib for targets where compression is enabled by default.

-- 
H.J.