Bug#908568: nvidia-driver: build error

[Russ Allbery]

Vincent Lefevre <vincent at vinc17.net> writes:

> Even with just a differing *minor* version? Note that since GCC 5,
> an update of the minor version should just be bug fixes:

>   https://gcc.gnu.org/develop.html

The kernel uses GCC-specific features in an extremely aggressive way.  I'm
not particularly surprised that ABI compatibility might break across minor
versions.  Normally the linux-compiler-gcc-* packages express the required
compiler version for building kernel modules and handle this, but they're
only an upgrade ratchet, not a downgrade ratchet.  (Plus, that would just
create an unsatisfiable dependency since the compiler packages aren't
broken apart that way.)

> If the minor version really matters, why Debian doesn't ship different
> packages, such as gcc-6.3 and gcc-6.4?

I suspect that usually only the kernel is affected.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>