projects / binutils.git / blame
| Commit | Line | Data |
|---|---|---|
| d08a5233 PB |
1 | This is a BETA release of a completely rewritten binutils distribution. |
| 2 | The linker (ld) has been moved into a separate directory, | |
| 3 | which should be ../ld. Linker-specific notes are in ../ld/README. | |
| 4 | ||
| 5 | These programs have been tested on various architectures. | |
| 6 | Most recently tested are sun3 and sun4s running sunos4, | |
| 7 | as well as Sony News running newsos3. | |
| 8 | However, since this is a beta release taken directly from an | |
| 9 | evolving source tree, there might be some problems. In particular, | |
| 10 | the programs have not been ported to as many machines as the | |
| 11 | old binutils. There are also features of the old versions | |
| 12 | that are missing on the new programs. We would appreciate | |
| 13 | patches to make things run on other machines; especially welcome | |
| 14 | are fixes for what used to work on the old programs! | |
| 15 | ||
| 16 | Unpacking and Installation -- quick overview | |
| 17 | ========================== | |
| 18 | ||
| 19 | In this release, the binary utilities, the linker, the generic GNU include | |
| 20 | files, the BFD ("binary file description") library, and getopt all have | |
| 21 | directories of their own underneath the binutils-2.0 directory. | |
| 22 | The idea is that a variety of GNU tools can | |
| 23 | share a common copy of these things. Configuration scripts and | |
| 24 | makefiles exist to cruise up and down this directory tree and | |
| 25 | automatically build all the pieces in the right order. | |
| 26 | ||
| 27 | When you unpack the binutils-2.0.tar.Z file, you'll get a directory called | |
| 28 | something like `binutils-2.0', which contains: | |
| 29 | ||
| 30 | DOC.configure README config/ configure* ld/ | |
| 31 | Makefile bfd/ config.status* configure.in libiberty/ | |
| 32 | Makefile.in binutils/ config.sub include/ texinfo/ | |
| 33 | ||
| 34 | To build binutils, you can just do: | |
| 35 | ||
| 36 | cd binutils-2.0 | |
| 37 | ./configure HOSTTYPE (e.g. sun4, decstation) | |
| 38 | make | |
| 39 | make install # copies the programs files into /usr/local/bin by default. | |
| 40 | ||
| 41 | This will configure and build all the libraries as well as binutils | |
| 42 | and the linker. | |
| 43 | ||
| 44 | The binutils can be used in a cross-development environment. | |
| 45 | The file DOC.configure contains more information. | |
| 46 | ||
| 47 | Porting | |
| 48 | ======= | |
| 49 | Binutils-2.0 supports many different architectures, but there | |
| 50 | are many more not supported, including some that were supported | |
| 51 | by earlier versions. We are hoping for volunteers to | |
| 52 | improve this situation. | |
| 53 | ||
| 54 | The major effort in porting binutils to a new host and/or target | |
| 55 | architecture involves the BFD library. There is some documentation | |
| 56 | in ../bfd/doc. The file ../gdb/doc/gdbint.texinfo (distributed | |
| 57 | with gdb-3.2) may also be of help. | |
| 58 | ||
| 59 | If your system uses some variant of old-style a.out-format, | |
| 60 | you can start with a copy of bfd/newsos3.c, and edit it to fit. | |
| 61 | (You may also need to tweak bfd/aout-target.h.) | |
| 62 | Alternatively, you could use the host-aout.c target. This is a | |
| 63 | special kludge that only works for native (non-cross) configurations. | |
| 64 | ||
| 65 | Reporting bugs | |
| 66 | ============== | |
| 67 | If you can't track down a bug and send suggestions/patches | |
| 68 | for fixes, you should probably *not* be using this release. | |
| 69 | I cannot work on finding bugs at this stage (except for | |
| 70 | Cygnus-supported configurations). But if you have suggestions | |
| 71 | or patches, send them to [email protected], for now. | |
| 72 | (After the official release, the correct address will | |
| 73 | be [email protected].) |