arm compiler to use?

I've been trying to put together a docker container to build deviation with, and have run into a problem. Summary is - there's no longer an "official" build available that will build a devo 7E dfu file using the current settings.

The launchpad folk have a new repository, which only has 5.2 and 6.0 versions of the toolchain. The "old" official repository only has 4.9.3 2015q3, which builds a binary 8 bytes to large with the current head. I'm using 4.9.3 20150529 (q2?), which still fits.

Repositories for LTS versions of Linux may well have the 4.8 compiler, but the one I checked won't build things out of the box, as it's actually older than the system we're using now.

So, I'm thinking we should byte the bullet, and figure out what it's going to take to build for a 7E with the newest production build. Right now, that appears to mean finding ~110 bytes in rom.

I think we should run a poll to ditch some features if possible on the 7e.
Do the different protocols take up ROM space ? if yes then is it possible to just compile to use one or two ?

I know that PB is resistant to the idea of abandoning the 7e, but the 7e is holding back the rest of the Tx models due to its lack of available memory. In my opinion the 7e should be split off from the rest with its own development fork.

Easy for me to say though, as I don't have any skills to contribute to development of any kind. So, take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Personally, I'd dump the standard GUI on the 7e, but PB already rejected that option.

Protocols don't take up ROM space. Only the one being used is loaded, and that's into RAM. We are having issues with some of the heavier protocols not fitting in RAM on the 7E, but that's a different issue.

Note that the F7 - already supported - and the F4 use the same CPU as the 7E.

Hmm. Looks like I got bit by trying to use the officially supported repository instead of the download page. They only put recent versions - 5.2 - in the repository, but the downloads page has older ones as well. So getting a current compiler isn't so much of an issue. But we still need to think about moving beyond the now year+ old version of the compiler.