GH-45484: [C++] Drop support for the gold linker (#47780)

### Rationale for this change

Because the gold linker is deprecated in GNU Binutils 2.44:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2025-02/msg00001.html

> In a change to our previous practice, in this release the
> binutils-2.44.tar tarball does not contain the sources for the gold
> linker.  This is because the gold linker is now deprecated and will
> eventually be removed unless volunteers step forward and offer to
> continue development and maintenance.

### What changes are included in this PR?

Remove `ARROW_USE_LD_GOLD` CMake option and related build code to build with gold linker.

### Are these changes tested?

Via CI

### Are there any user-facing changes?

The gold linker will be unsupported going forward.

* GitHub Issue: #45484

Authored-by: Raúl Cumplido <raulcumplido@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Sutou Kouhei <kou@clear-code.com>

Author: raulcd

ci/scripts/cpp_build.sh

@@ -228,7 +228,6 @@ else
     -DARROW_USE_ASAN=${ARROW_USE_ASAN:-OFF} \
     -DARROW_USE_CCACHE=${ARROW_USE_CCACHE:-ON} \
     -DARROW_USE_GLOG=${ARROW_USE_GLOG:-OFF} \
-    -DARROW_USE_LD_GOLD=${ARROW_USE_LD_GOLD:-OFF} \
     -DARROW_USE_LLD=${ARROW_USE_LLD:-OFF} \
     -DARROW_USE_MOLD=${ARROW_USE_MOLD:-OFF} \
     -DARROW_USE_STATIC_CRT=${ARROW_USE_STATIC_CRT:-OFF} \

cpp/cmake_modules/DefineOptions.cmake

@@ -170,8 +170,6 @@ if(ARROW_DEFINE_OPTIONS)
   define_option(ARROW_USE_SCCACHE "Use sccache when compiling (if available),;\
 takes precedence over ccache if a storage backend is configured" ON)
 
-  define_option(ARROW_USE_LD_GOLD "Use ld.gold for linking on Linux (if available)" OFF)
-
   define_option(ARROW_USE_LLD "Use the LLVM lld for linking (if available)" OFF)
 
   define_option(ARROW_USE_MOLD "Use mold for linking on Linux (if available)" OFF)

cpp/cmake_modules/SetupCxxFlags.cmake

@@ -540,95 +540,6 @@ if(ARROW_CPU_FLAG STREQUAL "aarch64")
   endif()
 endif()
 
-# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-# Setup Gold linker, if available. Code originally from Apache Kudu
-
-# Interrogates the linker version via the C++ compiler to determine whether
-# we're using the gold linker, and if so, extracts its version.
-#
-# If the gold linker is being used, sets GOLD_VERSION in the parent scope with
-# the extracted version.
-#
-# Any additional arguments are passed verbatim into the C++ compiler invocation.
-function(GET_GOLD_VERSION)
-  # The gold linker is only for ELF binaries, which macOS doesn't use.
-  execute_process(COMMAND ${CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER} "-Wl,--version" ${ARGN}
-                  ERROR_QUIET
-                  OUTPUT_VARIABLE LINKER_OUTPUT)
-  # We're expecting LINKER_OUTPUT to look like one of these:
-  #   GNU gold (version 2.24) 1.11
-  #   GNU gold (GNU Binutils for Ubuntu 2.30) 1.15
-  if(LINKER_OUTPUT MATCHES "GNU gold")
-    string(REGEX MATCH "GNU gold \\([^\\)]*\\) (([0-9]+\\.?)+)" _ "${LINKER_OUTPUT}")
-    if(NOT CMAKE_MATCH_1)
-      message(SEND_ERROR "Could not extract GNU gold version. "
-                         "Linker version output: ${LINKER_OUTPUT}")
-    endif()
-    set(GOLD_VERSION
-        "${CMAKE_MATCH_1}"
-        PARENT_SCOPE)
-  endif()
-endfunction()
-
-# Is the compiler hard-wired to use the gold linker?
-if(NOT WIN32 AND NOT APPLE)
-  get_gold_version()
-  if(GOLD_VERSION)
-    set(MUST_USE_GOLD 1)
-  elseif(ARROW_USE_LD_GOLD)
-    # Can the compiler optionally enable the gold linker?
-    get_gold_version("-fuse-ld=gold")
-
-    # We can't use the gold linker if it's inside devtoolset because the compiler
-    # won't find it when invoked directly from make/ninja (which is typically
-    # done outside devtoolset).
-    execute_process(COMMAND which ld.gold
-                    OUTPUT_VARIABLE GOLD_LOCATION
-                    OUTPUT_STRIP_TRAILING_WHITESPACE ERROR_QUIET)
-    if("${GOLD_LOCATION}" MATCHES "^/opt/rh/devtoolset")
-      message(STATUS "Skipping optional gold linker (version ${GOLD_VERSION}) because "
-                     "it's in devtoolset")
-      set(GOLD_VERSION)
-    endif()
-  endif()
-
-  if(GOLD_VERSION)
-    # Older versions of the gold linker are vulnerable to a bug [1] which
-    # prevents weak symbols from being overridden properly. This leads to
-    # omitting of dependencies like tcmalloc (used in Kudu, where this
-    # workaround was written originally)
-    #
-    # How we handle this situation depends on other factors:
-    # - If gold is optional, we won't use it.
-    # - If gold is required, we'll either:
-    #   - Raise an error in RELEASE builds (we shouldn't release such a product), or
-    #   - Drop tcmalloc in all other builds.
-    #
-    # 1. https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=16979.
-    if("${GOLD_VERSION}" VERSION_LESS "1.12")
-      set(ARROW_BUGGY_GOLD 1)
-    endif()
-    if(MUST_USE_GOLD)
-      message(STATUS "Using hard-wired gold linker (version ${GOLD_VERSION})")
-      if(ARROW_BUGGY_GOLD)
-        if("${ARROW_LINK}" STREQUAL "d" AND "${UPPERCASE_BUILD_TYPE}" STREQUAL "RELEASE")
-          message(SEND_ERROR "Configured to use buggy gold with dynamic linking "
-                             "in a RELEASE build")
-        endif()
-      endif()
-    elseif(NOT ARROW_BUGGY_GOLD)
-      # The Gold linker must be manually enabled.
-      set(CMAKE_C_FLAGS "${CMAKE_C_FLAGS} -fuse-ld=gold")
-      set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -fuse-ld=gold")
-      message(STATUS "Using optional gold linker (version ${GOLD_VERSION})")
-    else()
-      message(STATUS "Optional gold linker is buggy, using ld linker instead")
-    endif()
-  else()
-    message(STATUS "Using ld linker")
-  endif()
-endif()
-
 if(NOT WIN32 AND NOT APPLE)
   if(ARROW_USE_MOLD)
     find_program(LD_MOLD ld.mold)

dev/archery/archery/cli.py

@@ -125,8 +125,6 @@ def _apply_options(cmd, options):
               help="Use CMAKE_UNITY_BUILD")
 @click.option("--warn-level", default="production", type=warn_level_type,
               help="Controls compiler warnings -W(no-)error.")
-@click.option("--use-gold-linker", default=True, type=BOOL,
-              help="Toggles ARROW_USE_LD_GOLD option.")
 @click.option("--simd-level", default="DEFAULT", type=simd_level,
               help="Toggles ARROW_SIMD_LEVEL option.")
 # Tests and benchmarks

dev/archery/archery/lang/cpp.py

@@ -62,7 +62,6 @@ def __init__(self,
                  with_brotli=None, with_bz2=None, with_lz4=None,
                  with_snappy=None, with_zlib=None, with_zstd=None,
                  # extras
-                 use_gold_linker=True,
                  simd_level="DEFAULT",
                  cmake_extras=None):
         self._cc = cc
@@ -114,7 +113,6 @@ def __init__(self,
         self.with_zlib = with_zlib
         self.with_zstd = with_zstd
 
-        self.use_gold_linker = use_gold_linker
         self.simd_level = simd_level
 
         self.cmake_extras = cmake_extras
@@ -237,10 +235,6 @@ def _gen_defs(self):
         yield ("ARROW_WITH_ZLIB", truthifier(self.with_zlib))
         yield ("ARROW_WITH_ZSTD", truthifier(self.with_zstd))
 
-        # Some configurations don't like gnu gold linker.
-        broken_with_gold_ld = [self.with_fuzzing, self.with_gandiva]
-        if self.use_gold_linker and not any(broken_with_gold_ld):
-            yield ("ARROW_USE_LD_GOLD", truthifier(self.use_gold_linker))
         yield ("ARROW_SIMD_LEVEL", or_else(self.simd_level, "DEFAULT"))
 
         # Detect custom conda toolchain

docker-compose.yml

@@ -290,7 +290,6 @@ services:
       ARROW_ENABLE_TIMING_TESTS:  # inherit
       ARROW_EXTRA_ERROR_CONTEXT: "ON"
       ARROW_MIMALLOC: "ON"
-      ARROW_USE_LD_GOLD: "ON"
       BUILD_DOCS_PYTHON: "ON"
     volumes: &conda-volumes
       - .:/arrow:delegated
@@ -332,7 +331,6 @@ services:
       ARROW_MIMALLOC: "OFF"
       ARROW_RUNTIME_SIMD_LEVEL: "AVX2"  # AVX512 not supported by Valgrind (ARROW-9851)
       ARROW_TEST_MEMCHECK: "ON"
-      ARROW_USE_LD_GOLD: "ON"
       BUILD_WARNING_LEVEL: "PRODUCTION"
       ARROW_CTEST_TIMEOUT: 500
     volumes: *conda-volumes