diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index c1cac349ba4e362e4a69b4a73306a650facaf7f6..c567c4343880a5de3884beadbfaf22b4e16f9c0d 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -830,8 +830,9 @@ ifneq ($(LLVM_IAS),1)
 KBUILD_AFLAGS	+= -Wa,-gdwarf-2
 endif
 
-ifdef CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_DWARF4
-DEBUG_CFLAGS	+= -gdwarf-4
+ifndef CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_DWARF_TOOLCHAIN_DEFAULT
+dwarf-version-$(CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_DWARF4) := 4
+DEBUG_CFLAGS	+= -gdwarf-$(dwarf-version-y)
 endif
 
 ifdef CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_REDUCED
diff --git a/lib/Kconfig.debug b/lib/Kconfig.debug
index 9cf4d12b81fbfdb37d0e0d3b0bf46beddd0ee36f..3555edcfd4ab666b6cc03412741a2cc7ff41d8e7 100644
--- a/lib/Kconfig.debug
+++ b/lib/Kconfig.debug
@@ -256,13 +256,33 @@ config DEBUG_INFO_SPLIT
 	  to know about the .dwo files and include them.
 	  Incompatible with older versions of ccache.
 
+choice
+	prompt "DWARF version"
+	help
+	  Which version of DWARF debug info to emit.
+
+config DEBUG_INFO_DWARF_TOOLCHAIN_DEFAULT
+	bool "Rely on the toolchain's implicit default DWARF version"
+	help
+	  The implicit default version of DWARF debug info produced by a
+	  toolchain changes over time.
+
+	  This can break consumers of the debug info that haven't upgraded to
+	  support newer revisions, and prevent testing newer versions, but
+	  those should be less common scenarios.
+
+	  If unsure, say Y.
+
 config DEBUG_INFO_DWARF4
-	bool "Generate dwarf4 debuginfo"
+	bool "Generate DWARF Version 4 debuginfo"
 	help
-	  Generate dwarf4 debug info. This requires recent versions
-	  of gcc and gdb. It makes the debug information larger.
-	  But it significantly improves the success of resolving
-	  variables in gdb on optimized code.
+	  Generate DWARF v4 debug info. This requires gcc 4.5+ and gdb 7.0+.
+
+	  If you have consumers of DWARF debug info that are not ready for
+	  newer revisions of DWARF, you may wish to choose this or have your
+	  config select this.
+
+endchoice # "DWARF version"
 
 config DEBUG_INFO_BTF
 	bool "Generate BTF typeinfo"