• Nathan Chancellor's avatar
    Documentation: Raise the minimum supported version of LLVM to 11.0.0 · df05c0e9
    Nathan Chancellor authored
    LLVM versions prior to 11.0.0 have a harder time with dead code
    elimination, which can cause issues with commonly used expressions such
    as BUILD_BUG_ON and the bitmask functions/macros in bitfield.h (see the
    first two issues links below).
    
    Whenever there is an issue within LLVM that has been resolved in a later
    release, the only course of action is to gate the problematic
    configuration or source code on the toolchain verson or raise the
    minimum supported version of LLVM for building the kernel, as LLVM has a
    limited support lifetime compared to GCC. GCC major releases will
    typically see a few point releases across a two year period on average
    whereas LLVM major releases are only supported until the next major
    release and will only see one or two point releases within that
    timeframe. For example, GCC 8.1 was released in May 2018 and GCC 8.5 was
    released in May 2021, whereas LLVM 12.0.0 was released in April 2021 and
    its only point release, 12.0.1, was released in July 2021, giving a
    minimal window for fixes to be backported.
    
    To resolve these build errors around improper dead code elimination,
    raise the minimum supported version of LLVM for building the kernel to
    11.0.0. Doing so is a more proper solution than mucking around with core
    kernel macros that have always worked with GCC or disabling drivers for
    using these macros in a proper manner. This type of issue may continue
    to crop up and require patching, which creates more debt for bumping the
    minimum supported version in the future.
    
    This should have a minimal impact to distributions. Using a script to
    pull several different Docker images and check the output of
    'clang --version':
    
    archlinux:latest: clang version 13.0.0
    
    debian:oldoldstable-slim: clang version 3.8.1-24 (tags/RELEASE_381/final)
    debian:oldstable-slim: clang version 7.0.1-8+deb10u2 (tags/RELEASE_701/final)
    debian:stable-slim: Debian clang version 11.0.1-2
    debian:testing-slim: Debian clang version 11.1.0-4
    debian:unstable-slim: Debian clang version 11.1.0-4
    
    fedora:34: clang version 12.0.1 (Fedora 12.0.1-1.fc34)
    fedora:latest: clang version 13.0.0 (Fedora 13.0.0-3.fc35)
    fedora:rawhide: clang version 13.0.0 (Fedora 13.0.0-5.fc36)
    
    opensuse/leap:15.2: clang version 9.0.1
    opensuse/leap:latest: clang version 11.0.1
    opensuse/tumbleweed:latest: clang version 13.0.0
    
    ubuntu:bionic: clang version 6.0.0-1ubuntu2 (tags/RELEASE_600/final)
    ubuntu:latest: clang version 10.0.0-4ubuntu1
    ubuntu:hirsute: Ubuntu clang version 12.0.0-3ubuntu1~21.04.2
    ubuntu:rolling: Ubuntu clang version 13.0.0-2
    ubuntu:devel: Ubuntu clang version 13.0.0-9
    
    In every case, the distribution's version of clang is either older than
    the current minimum supported version of LLVM 10.0.1 or equal to or
    greater than the proposed 11.0.0 so nothing should change.
    
    Another benefit of this change is LLVM=1 works better with arm64 and
    x86_64 since commit f12b034a ("scripts/Makefile.clang: default to
    LLVM_IAS=1") enabled the integrated assembler by default, which only
    works well with clang 11+ (clang-10 required it to be disabled to
    successfully build a kernel).
    
    Link: https://github.com/ClangBuiltLinux/linux/issues/1293
    Link: https://github.com/ClangBuiltLinux/linux/issues/1506
    Link: https://github.com/ClangBuiltLinux/linux/issues/1511
    Link: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/fa496ce3c6774097080c8a9cb808da56f383b938
    Link: https://groups.google.com/g/clang-built-linux/c/mPQb9_ZWW0s/m/W7o6S-QTBAAJ
    Link: https://github.com/ClangBuiltLinux/misc-scriptsSigned-off-by: default avatarNathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarMiguel Ojeda <ojeda@kernel.org>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarMark Brown <broonie@kernel.org>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarNick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@google.com>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarKees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarMasahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>
    df05c0e9
min-tool-version.sh 558 Bytes