binutils/README

   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 bothner@cygnus.com, for now.
  72 (After the official release, the correct address will
  73 be bug-gnu-utils@ai.mit.edu.)