Which compiler to use to build kernel?

[Klaus-Peter Schrage]

Tim Wunder wrote:
> List, 
> RH 8.0 comes with gcc-3.2 only. I've read that gcc-3.2 shouldn't be used to 
> compile the kernel, and I've also read that it's fine for kernel building. 
> What's the general consensus on list? 
> Anyone using gcc-3.2 to compile the kernel and having problems?

Since RH 8.0 came out, I have been recompiling their most up-to-date
kernel-sources, because I wanted to have NTFS support. I am now at
2.4.18-19.8.0. I have always been using gcc-3.2, all compiles went
without any probs, and the resulting kernels seem to be stable.
When configuring the kernel with make menuconfig, I started off with one
of the config files in /usr/src/linux-2.4/configs
(kernel-2.4.18-i686.config) and blotted out all options that I didn't need.
After each kernel build, I also compiled some third party kernel modules
like NVidia and ALSA, still no problems.
Problems only arrived when I tried out RH's version of
kernel-source-2.4.20 from their beta-distribution ("Phoebe"); I still
could compile, but the resulting kernel was odd (eg broken USB mouse
support), so I dropped it. But I think this is not a gcc-3.2 issue.
Klaus