I was compiling new MPlayer-0.18pre and it complains about gcc version. So I read the DOCS and found this in their FAQ: Q: What's the problem with gcc 2.96 ? A: gcc 2.96 is RedHat's UNOFFICIAL (it can be found only on RedHat sites, or RedHat distributions) and BUGGY gcc release. gcc 2.96 is TOTALLY unsupported by MPlayer, because it simply SKIPS MMX codes, it just does not compile it. Important: this is NOT an MPlayer-specific problem, numerous other projects (DRI, avifile, etc..) have problems with this shit too. ** DO NOT USE gcc 2.96 !!! ** When I ./configure --disable-gcc-checking it compiles and run well. gcc-2.96-85 kernel-2.4.3-12 CPU: AMD Athlon 850 If they're true (and I cannot find it in rh's bugzilla) someone should fix it. If they're not - someone should tell them to not blame rh's gcc. This is their development mailing list: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mplayer-dev-eng
I don't know what they are talking about. I remember something about using | in comments in inline MMX assembly but am not sure if it was MPlayer or what. | cannot be used in IA-32 inline assembly with gcc-2.96-RH+ (including 3.0), since it unlike 2.95 supports more than one assembly standard (AT&T and Intel). We don't consider gcc-2.96-RH "totally buggy" and are working on fixing bugs which get reported to us.