R on gentoo amd64 (gcc 3.3.3) is unstable --- no!

On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 ivo_welch-rstat8783@mailblocks.com wrote:

 

peter/brian:  thank you for the help.  i can now report that gentoo 
amd64 can compile R just fine, too; it requires the f77 USE flag and a 
gcc compiler rebuild first, though.  I also went to gcc 3.4.1.  my 
segfault troubles earlier were caused by my use of f2c.

suggestion: would it be possible to add a code snippet  that tests 
whether the user is trying to compile with f2c---and if so, bombs the 
installation?  (if "f77 --version == f2c" then die)  I know the 
problems are not R's fault, but it can percolate into R and it can 
protect people like myself.
   

The thing is, it does work on some platforms -- I do test i686 RH8.0
(updated with gcc 3.4.1) from time to time and it looks like I tested
1.9.0 during beta test.  So `make check' is the only reliable test.
(I've just run the current R-devel to cross-check.  It runs into the 
infinite-loop in LAPACK problem with gcc >= 3.4.0 though, with the same 
fix.)

I suspect f2c on a 64-bit platform is a bad idea as int != long.
We could detect that.