Re: xtensa-fsf-ld: dangerous relocation: call8: call target out of range

[Sterling Augustine <augustine dot sterling at gmail dot com>]

On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Max Filippov <jcmvbkbc@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 4:40 PM, nick clifton <nickc@redhat.com> wrote:
>> Hi Max
>>
>>> This brings up the following questions:
>>> - is it still worth to debug the issue with the recent binutils +
>>> older FSF overlay?
>>
>> Err, is that possible ?  I thought that the "FSF overlay" was the stock set
>> of Tensilica specific *.c/*.h files distributed with a binutils release.  If
>> so then if you are using a "recent binutils" then you surely would be using
>> the "FSF overlay" that comes with these sources, not an older one, right ?
>
> Once upon a time I made myself an "FSF overlay" for binutils/gcc/gdb/linux
> out of then current versions thereof. That overlay had consistent #defines.
> Now stock binutils definitions conflict with stock linux definitions, it makes
> no sense to build it that way.
>
>>> (seems like the answer is "yes", because relaxation logic does not
>>>  belong to overlay)
>>
>> Well the relaxation performed by the linker is xtensa specific, so maybe one
>> or more of the overlay files do influence the behaviour of the relaxation
>> process.  (Possibly via the presence or absence of a #define ?)
>
> That's a question for binutils + xtensa expert, which I'm not (yet).
> Sterling? Marc?
>
>>> - how comes that FSF overlay has different features in different
>>> - binutils releases?
>>
>> I presume that this is because of bug fixing.
>
> I've no idea. That's why I Cc: Bob Wilson, who's contributed FSF overlay
> to binutils, maybe he can shed some light on what was intended with
> the change.
>
>> My current feeling is: If the problem is fixed in the current release, but
>> broken in an older release, then do not worry about fixing the older
>> release.  Add a requirement to the kernel build to use binutils of at least
>> the current version and go on to fix the next bug. :-)

Someone from Tensilica really needs to jump in here--they should know
the status of the various overlays. Marc? Piet? Dror?

As to why an overlay could affect relaxation, that would have to do
with the instructions available in the processor, and how they might
be issued together. The relaxation mechanism itself wouldn't be
affected, but the instructions it has to work with would be. Also, the
Linux build exercises relocatable links in ways that are a bit
unusual.

Sterling