Re: [edk2-devel] [Patch 0/7] Add new CLANG8ELF tool chain for new LLVM/CLANG8

["Leif Lindholm" <leif.lindholm@linaro.org>]

On Sun, Apr 28, 2019 at 12:55:02AM +0000, Liming Gao wrote:
> >> This tool chain can be used to compile the firmware code. On windows OS,
> >> Visual Studio is still required to compile BaseTools C tools and
> >> provide nmake.exe for makefile. On Linux/Mac OS, gcc is used to compile
> >> BaseTools C tools. make is used for makefile.
> >>
> >> This tool chain is verified on OVMF Ia32, X64 and Ia32X64 to boot Shell.
> >> This tool chain is verified in Windows/Linux and Mac OS.
> >
> >Hello Liming,
> >
> >This series confuses me. The existing CLANGxx toolchains already use
> >GenFw and ELF to PE/COFF conversion, so the name CLANG8ELF is
> >misleading.
> >
> LLVM/CLANG8.0 compiler supports to generate PE image or ELF
> image. This tool chain is to generate ELF image and be converted to
> PE image.

Which is what CLANG38 does - so why do we need a completely new
toolchain profile? (Shortly after we got rid of a bunch of unneeded
ones.)

> I am investigating another tool chain with CLANG8.0 to
> directly generate PE image. To differentiate them, I use the tool
> chain name CLANG8ELF and CLANG8PE for them.

Why do we want two different toolchain profiles that generate
identical output in different ways, using the same tools?

> >Also, it seems that the primary difference is using LLD instead of GNU
> >ld, but this has nothing to do with the Clang version.
> >
> >What is the benefit of using LLD over GNU ld? It seems we are working
> >around various incompatibilities, and I think this is only justified
> >if LLD has some benefit over GNU ld.
>
> LLD is part of LLVM/CLANG8 tool set. User can get all required
> compilers and linkers from
> http://releases.llvm.org/download.html#8.0.0.
> LLVM8 release includes Windows/Linux/Mac version. User can download
> it and install them together. This tool chain is the unified tool
> chain to be used in Windows/Linux/Mac OS. 

Can we note already build under all of these operating systems with
the GNU binutils linker?

When developing under Linux, I will use the toolchain provided by my
distribution.

/
    Leif