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# Installing Binutils-2.14

    Estimated build time:           1.4 SBU
    Estimated required disk space:  167 MB

## Contents of Binutils

(Last checked against version 2.14.)

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

Installed programs: addr2line, ar, as, c++filt, gprof, ld, nm, objcopy, objdump, ranlib, readelf, size, strings and strip

Installed libraries: 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, cpp, gcc
Glibc: ldconfig
Grep: egrep, fgrep, grep
Make: make
Sed: sed
Texinfo: install-info, makeinfo

##

## Installation of Binutils

Now is an appropriate time to verify that your pseudo terminals (PTYs) are working properly inside the chroot environment. We will again quickly check that everything is set up correctly by performing a simple test:

    expect -c "spawn ls"

If you receive the message:

>     The system has no more ptys.  Ask your system administrator to create more.

Your chroot environment is not set up for proper PTY operation. In this case there is no point in running the test suites for Binutils and GCC until you are able to resolve the issue. Please refer back to the Section called Mounting the proc and devpts file systems and the Section called Creating devices (Makedev-1.7) and perform the recommended steps to fix the problem.

> Note: The test suite for Binutils in this section is considered critical. Our advice is to not skip it under any circumstances.

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.

The Binutils documentation recommends building Binutils outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:

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

Now prepare Binutils for compilation:

    ../binutils-2.14/configure \
        --prefix=/usr --enable-shared

Compile the package:

    make tooldir=/usr

Normally, the tooldir (the directory where the executables end up) is set to $(exec_prefix)/$(target_alias), which expands into, for example, `/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu`. Since we only build for our own system, we don't need this target specific directory in `/usr`. That setup would be used if the system was used to cross-compile (for example compiling a package on an Intel machine that generates code that can be executed on PowerPC machines).

Test the results:

    make check

The test suite notes from the Section called Installing Binutils-2.14 - Pass 2 in Chapter 5 are still very much appropriate here. Be sure to refer back there should you have any doubts.

Install the package:

    make tooldir=/usr install

Install the libiberty header file that is needed by some packages:

    cp ../binutils-2.14/include/libiberty.h /usr/include

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