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# Installing Binutils-2.14 - Pass 1

    Estimated build time:           1.0 SBU
    Estimated required disk space:  160 MB

## Contents of Binutils

(Last checked against version 2.12.1.)

Binutils is a collection of software development tools containing a linker, assembler and other tools to work with object files and archives.

Binutils installs the following files:

### Program Files

addr2line, ar, as, gprof, ld, nm, objcopy, objdump, ranlib, readelf, size, strings and strip

### Library Files

libbfd.[a,so] and libopcodes.[a,so]

##

## Binutils Installation Dependencies

(Last checked against version 2.11.2.)

Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, nm, ranlib, strip
Coreutils: basename, cat, chmod, cp, echo, expr, hostname, ln, ls, mkdir
mv, rm, rmdir, sleep, sort, touch, tr, true, uname, uniq
Diffutils: cmp
Gawk: gawk
GCC: cc, cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Glibc: ldconfig
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo

##

## Installation of Binutils

It is important that Binutils be the first package to get compiled, because both Glibc and GCC perform various tests on the available linker and assembler to determine which of their own features to enable.

> Note: Even though Binutils is an important toolchain package, we are not going to run the testsuite at this early stage. First, the testsuite framework is not yet in place and second, the programs from this first pass will soon be overwritten by those installed in the second pass.

This package is known to behave badly when you have changed its default optimization flags (including the -march and -mcpu options). Therefore, if you have defined any environment variables that override default optimizations, such as CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, we recommend unsetting or modifying them when building Binutils.

It is recommended by the Binutils installation documentation to build Binutils outside of the source directory in a dedicated directory:

    mkdir ../binutils-build
    cd ../binutils-build

Next, prepare Binutils to be compiled:

    ../binutils-2.14/configure \
        --prefix=/tools --disable-nls

The meaning of the configure switches:

- `--prefix=/tools`: This tells the configure script to prepare to install the Binutils programs in the `/tools` directory.

- `--disable-nls`: This disables internationalization (a word often shortened to i18n). We don't need this for our static programs and nls often causes problems when linking statically.

Continue with compiling the package:

    make configure-host
    make LDFLAGS="-all-static"

The meaning of the make option:

- `LDFLAGS="-all-static"`: This tells the linker that all the Binutils programs should be linked statically.

And install the package:

    make install

Now prepare the linker for the "locking in" of Glibc later on:

    make -C ld clean
    make -C ld LIB_PATH=/tools/lib

Caution
Do not yet remove the Binutils build and source directories. You will need them again in their current state a bit further on in this chapter.

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