Re: building gcc 4.4.5 from source on Fedora 13

[Jonathan Wakely <jwakely dot gcc at gmail dot com>]

On 29 November 2010 13:40, Mr Dash Four wrote:
>
>> P.S. If you just want to build GCC from source (rather than building
>> the Fedora GCC package from the Fedora GCC SRPM) then the instructions
>> are at http://gcc.gnu.org/install/
>>
>> That will not try to build java or ada, will not run the tests unless
>> you ask for it, and will build a multilib compiler by default.
>>
>
> The problem is that I wanted to build rpm, which I can use later on more
> than one machine - not just on the machine I was compiling GCC on.
>
>> That said, the default Fedora packages *are* multilib, you just needed
>> to install libgcc.i686 as Andrew pointed out.
>
> My major gripe is with the gcc.spec file provided by Fedora - it does not do
> a good job at all.

So take it up with Fedora.

> I ended up installing more packages than the one you and Andrew were kind
> enough to point out as I had a lot of dead symlinks - I wrote this in my
> previous post and thought I was pretty clear on this. Installing libgcc.i686
> along with the main GCC package does NOT solve that problem.

No, as you discovered, you also need glibc-devel.i686 to compile and
link 32-bit programs. Just like you need glibc-devel.x86_64 to compile
and link 64-bit programs.  That's still a Fedora issue not a GCC one.

> Another issue I have (had!) is that if I wanted to build GCC to be installed
> on a Fedora system using gcc.spec - provided by Fedora, no less - I expect
> at the end of this process to end up with all the necessary packages needed
> (x86_64 AND i686 if I select the multilib option) for GCC to function
> properly and with all the functionality I have requested/specified. I do not
> expect to end up with half-ars*d installation and dead links all over the
> place.
>
> If I choose to install GCC directly (without compiling it) by using
> Fedora-pre-built GCC rpm, and, as you point out, if it is already a multilib
> package, then I expect it to install all the dependencies needed for it to
> function properly and not leave me scratching my head wondering what the
> hell is going on, wouldn't you agree?

That depends on your definition of "function properly"

I can't speak for the Fedora project, but I think what you get by
default by saying "yum install gcc" is sufficient to build 64-bit
programs. The compiler itself is multilib-capable, but doesn't pull in
the other package dependencies needed to actually build 32-bit
programs. If it did, I'm sure there'd be angry users complaining that
they only want to build 64-bit, so why are 32-bit libs pulled in
unconditionally.  As it stands, users who want 64-bit-only can have it
their way and users who want both 32-bit and 64-bit can have it their
way, after installing a few extra packages.

For an authoritative reason you'd be better off asking on a Fedora list.

>> So you probably don't need to build GCC yourself anyway.
>>
>
> Aye, I've made full circle and I am still pissed off about this as I wasted
> the good part of a day figuring out what on earth is going on, which
> wouldn't have been the case if everything was installed properly by Fedora
> in the first place...and that brings me nicely to the original point I've
> made - the current package provided by Fedora isn't up to scratch and it
> leaves a lot to be desired and if someone is brave enough to compile GCC
> using the spec file provided by Fedora is going to be in a world of hurt!

Fair enough, but that's still a Fedora issue, and if you want
something in Fedora changed then this is the wrong place to suggest
it.