Please post your Buildroot .config so we can reproduce the problem.

And for the "meanwhile - why it applies arm related patches to x86?" question, this is because we don't do architecture-specific patches. Those patches are always applied, regardless of which architecture you are building for, but in practice they only touch ARM-specific parts of gcc, so they are totally harmless if you build for x86, PowerPC or MIPS. Having a single stack of patches that are always applied regardless of the selected architecture is much better than having per-architecture patches.

(In reply to comment #1)
> Please post your Buildroot .config so we can reproduce the problem.
> 
> And for the "meanwhile - why it applies arm related patches to x86?" question,
> this is because we don't do architecture-specific patches. Those patches are
> always applied, regardless of which architecture you are building for, but in
> practice they only touch ARM-specific parts of gcc, so they are totally
> harmless if you build for x86, PowerPC or MIPS. Having a single stack of
> patches that are always applied regardless of the selected architecture is much
> better than having per-architecture patches.

OK.
Especially if it is harmless.

Created attachment 4706 [details]
Zip file contains .config and kernel defconfig used in .config

So, you're explicitly passing:

BR2_EXTRA_GCC_CONFIG_OPTIONS="-msoft-float"

in your Buildroot configuration, and then you complain because GCC doesn't understand your special flag? If you pass a special flag, aren't you supposed to know what you're doing?

This seems like a curious bug report, isn't it ?

(In reply to comment #4)
> So, you're explicitly passing:
> 
> BR2_EXTRA_GCC_CONFIG_OPTIONS="-msoft-float"

No, I am setting "Additional gcc options". That leads to 
BR2_EXTRA_GCC_CONFIG_OPTIONS="-msoft-float"
I surely was not understanding that it will lead to CONFIG option. 
My fault. But that is curious conversion from "Additional gcc options" to 
BR2_EXTRA_GCC_CONFIG_OPTIONS - it is not clear until one goes into 
the .config in text form. Meanwhile - using it in "Target optimizations" also 
leads to break. 

And that was not breaking the build in 2012.8

So, where should I put my -msoft-float then? I want everything to be compiled 
with this flag.

> 
> in your Buildroot configuration, and then you complain because GCC doesn't
> understand your special flag? 

What should I complain about then? Unclear language?
If one will change "Additional gcc options" to "Additional gcc config options"
there will be no confusion. Or to use anything I should go and check the source code? 

> If you pass a special flag, aren't you supposed
> to know what you're doing?
> 
> This seems like a curious bug report, isn't it ?

That is clear enough:

-msoft-float
           Use (do not use) the hardware floating-point instructions for floating-point operations.  When -msoft-float is specified, functions in libgcc.a will be used to perform floating-point operations. Unless they are replaced by routines that emulate the floating-point operations, or compiled in such a way as to call such emulations routines, these routines will issue floating-point operations. If you are compiling for an Alpha without floating-point operations, you must ensure that the library is built so as not to call them. Note that Alpha implementations without floating-point operations are required to have floating-point registers.

That is what I want - "functions in libgcc.a will be used to perform floating-point operations". I was wrong to use config option labelled as "additional" for that. Where can I put my "-msoft-float"?

The ARM soft-float / hard-float support has been significantly improved in the 2013.08 release. There is now a clear way of choosing between soft-float, hard-float with floating point arguments passed in integer registers (so-called softfp) and hard-float with floating point arguments passed in floating point registers (so called hardfp).

Therefore, I believe this bug can now be considered as fixed.