Re: [gentoo-dev] ICC Profile

["Sébastien Fabbro" <bicatali@gentoo.org>]

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Apologies if you received this mail already, I'm having problems with my
smtp.

On Thursday July 17 Adam Stylinski wrote:

> The intel C Compiler (icc) has an ebuild for gentoo and the wiki has
> a script to integrate it with portage.  This script works will in
> terms of building binaries, however when mixed with gcc environments
> there are massive linking issues.  I propose that an ICC profile is
> made which contains specific versions and default flags for people
> who want to build a mixed icc-gcc environment.  ICC is much faster
> than GCC and although not free, offers a free non-commercial
> license.  I would be very interested in this project and more than
> willing to help to the best of my abilities.  I've already been
> trying to maintain a mixed environment with some luck, while there
> have been a lot of problems using dynamically linked libraries (ld
> from intel and ld from gcc don't always get along), my system is
> substatially faster.  The kernel obviously will still be built under
> gcc as well as bash (unless intel helps submit patches to make the
> code work with their compiler).  There are many tools icc ! has to
> offer for vectorization.  If these were streamlined into Gentoo with
> a fetch restriction for ICC, a bootsrapping boot disk could be made
> and result in a very fast distribution. 


An icc profile would be welcome. I've been the maintainer of icc (and
other Intel tools) for the last year or so more by default than
real interest. I would welcome any input from the Gentoo community.
Re-adding slots and an icc profile was on my mind, but never found the
time to invest in it, and got at the tail of my priority list. So don't
hesitate to contact me (email, irc, bugs) and others.

There was some attempts a few years ago for rolling up a full Gentoo
with icc, but it hit several problems if I recall. Now both icc and gcc
have improved since then.

Also, if you haven't already, check also some of the old bugs [1,2] we
have, and a recurring one [3].

I would like to recall one important issue with the Intel license
concerning the "free for non-commercial use" [4]. It means
you can't use it for free if you're paid to use it. Yes,
beer is not free for academic scientists too.

[1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26757
[2] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53808
[3] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201596
[4] http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/219692.htm#0

- - -- 
Sébastien
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