Re: [PATCH v5 1/2] kbuild: move vmlinux.a build rule to scripts/Makefile.vmlinux_a

[Rong Xu]

I think the problem was $(AR) mPi and llvm-ar <= 14 do work correctly
in preserving the orders for "thin" archives without --thin.

We can either
(1) Bump the LLVM version to 15 and remove the --thin flag, or
(2) Implement a condition, as the --thin flag is only required for
llvm-ar. I assume the reported error was using gcc? (can someone send
a link for the failure?)

I think (2) is less involved. I can prepare a updated patch.

-Rong

On Mon, Mar 16, 2026 at 1:59 PM Miguel Ojeda
<miguel.ojeda.sandonis@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2026 at 2:40 PM Nicolas Schier <nsc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > The simpliest solution would be to declare binutils 2.38 as build
> > dependency; but I am afraid that it is still "too new", right now.
>
> From the last bump at commit 118c40b7b503 ("kbuild: require gcc-8 and
> binutils-2.30"), it seems binutils' minimum is supposed to go at
> roughly the same pace as GCC's. Cc'ing Arnd.
>
> Debian Old Stable has 2.40, so we would leave out Old Old Stable which
> would have a recent enough GCC otherwise, so I guess that means we
> cannot?
>
> (I was taking a look at this minimum yesterday, because I was thinking
> of removing the comment for a workaround related to binutils <= 2.36
> in `Documentation/rust/quick-start.rst` when I bump the Rust minimum.
> Of course, that comment is less critical, and those debugging a
> Rust-enabled kernel likely have newer binutils anyway).
>
> Cheers,
> Miguel