From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1PSLA6-00055h-LP for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Tue, 14 Dec 2010 03:02:50 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id B790EE071D for ; Tue, 14 Dec 2010 03:02:45 +0000 (UTC) Received: from qmta11.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net (qmta11.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net [76.96.27.211]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F776E073C for ; Tue, 14 Dec 2010 02:12:42 +0000 (UTC) Received: from omta07.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.30.59]) by qmta11.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id iprg1f0031GXsucABqCi4g; Tue, 14 Dec 2010 02:12:42 +0000 Received: from ajax.firstbooks ([68.60.124.221]) by omta07.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id iqCb1f00H4mjGH88UqCf4G; Tue, 14 Dec 2010 02:12:41 +0000 Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 21:12:24 -0500 From: Frank Peters To: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-amd64] Ghostscript Problem - Need Verification [SOLVED] Message-Id: <20101213211224.21cc39bb.frank.peters@comcast.net> In-Reply-To: References: <20101213171620.7b175d1b.frank.peters@comcast.net> X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.0.3 (GTK+ 2.22.1; x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 70c1746b-d93d-4096-a942-73d1d5eee0bf X-Archives-Hash: d4193546a5af9c0ab6ff50e909b8bfba Well, the problem is solved and the solution may be of interest to some Gentoo users. At first I thought that I was in for some heavy debugging, but the fault was a simple matter (simple at least superficially). I have been using the latest gcc-4.5.1 for some time now and I try to compile my system with all the newest optimizations, namely the "-flto," "-floop-interchange," "-floop-strip-mine," and "-floop-block" compiler flags which enables Graphite and LTO. Usually I have no problems during an emerge but when I do the temporary removal of the "-flto" option allows the emerge to finish. So far there have been no issues with these flags. Now, whenever a problem with software is encountered the first question to ask is what has been changed on the system. In my case it most likely was the use of these compiler flags. So, on a lark, I decided to re-emerge ghostscript with a basic set of CFLAGS = -O2 -march=native. It worked. The problem I was having with all black images has disappeared and ghostscript functions normally. However, I really cannot consider this to be normal behavior. Compiler optimization should not degrade the function of a program. Something subtle must be at fault with the gcc compiler. But being quite uninformed about compiler design I cannot say much more. Anyway, thanks again for all those who did the test. This confirmed that the problem was not ghostscript per se but rather a strange effect on the ghostscript code caused by the compiler optimization. I can now see why the Gentoo deveolpers are being so cautious by considering these latest GCC options as being experimental. Frank Peters