Binutils 2.8.1.0.15 for linux is released.

[hjl at lucon dot org (H.J. Lu)]

This is the public release of binutils 2.8.1.0.15 for Linux, which is
based on the binutils 970731 snapshot plus Linux/ARM support. You
also need libc 5.4.36 or above to use the precompiled binaries for
libc 5 or glibc 2.0.4 or above to use the precompiled binaries for
glibc 2.

This release is known not to work on Linux/ELF/alpha, Linux/ELF/MIPS
and Linux/ELF/PowerPC. Please get the current binutils snapshot to
see if it works for you if you happen to use Linux/ELF/alpha,
Linux/ELF/MIPS or Linux/ELF/PowerPC.

This release is required by egcs on Linux/x86.

Please report any bugs related to binutils 2.8.1.0.15 to
hjl@gnu.ai.mit.edu.

Changes from binutils 2.8.1.0.1:

1. Update from the binutils gas-970731.
2. More ELF versioning bugs are fixed.
3. Added x86-coff support in the binary release.
4. An ELF/m68k PC relative bug fix.
5. Use "objdump --dynamic-syms" to get the ELF versioning information.
6. Now you can create debuggable shared libraries again.
7. The generated files are back to ${objdir}.
8. The .set bug fix.
9. Some 64-bit clean patches.
10. An MMX opcode fix.
11. Add Linux/ARM support.

IMPORTANT:
The .plt format that the Alpha was using was not thread safe.  So I 
changed it.  The new format is *not* binary compatible with the old,
thus you must use glibc 2.0.4 to get an ld.so that can understand it.

Note that the new ld.so knows how to deal with the old .plt format, so
old libraries will still work, but they should be relinked eventually
for performance reasons.

Please do remember to remove /usr/bin/encaps first. Please also
remove /usr/bin/nm first, which may be a symbolic link in some
Linux distributions.

The file list:

1. binutils-2.8.1.0.15.tar.gz. Source code.
2. binutils-2.8.1.0.1-2.8.1.0.15.diff.gz. Patch against the previous
   source code.
3. binutils-2.8.1.0.15.bin.tar.gz. Precompiled Linux/x86 binaries for
   libc 5.
4. binutils-2.8.1.0.15-glibc.bin.tar.gz. Precompiled Linux/x86 binaries
   for libc 6 (glibc 2.0.4 or above).

The primary ftp sites for the compiler/C library are tsx-11.mit.edu
under pub/linux/packages/GCC and sunsite.unc.edu under pub/Linux/GCC.

To install this package, please follow the procedure very closely.
Please backup/save all the files you are instructed to delete and you
should do

	gzip -dc binutils-2.8.1.0.15.bin.tar.gz | tar tvvf -

or
	gzip -dc binutils-2.8.1.0.15-glibc.bin.tar.gz | tar tvvf -

to see what is in there.

Please do back up before you remove things.

To install for libc 5, PLEASE DO

1. su root
2. cd /
3. rm -f /usr/bin/encaps /usr/bin/nm
4. gzip -dc binutils-2.8.1.0.15.bin.tar.gz | tar xvvf -

To install for libc 6 (glibc 2.0.4 or above), PLEASE DO

1. su root
2. cd /
3. rm -f /usr/bin/encaps /usr/bin/nm
4. gzip -dc binutils-2.8.1.0.15-glibc.bin.tar.gz | tar xvvf -

Now you have the new gas/binutils under /usr/bin and
/usr/ix86-linuxaout/bin. You have to use

/usr/ix86-linuxaout/bin/as

and

/usr/ix86-linuxaout/bin/ld -m i386linux

if you want to use a.out as and ld directly.

I have changed the target names for Linux/x86 and Linux/x86 (a.out)
to ix86-linux and ix86-linuxaout respectively. The precompiled
binaries are installed under /usr/ix86-linux and /usr/ix86-linuxaout.
You should make appropriate symbolic links if you have a different
name for the Linux/x86 target, like i586-unknown-linux.

If you have an old linux library in the a.out format and you cannot
obtain the newer version in the ELF format for whatever reason, you
can try "objcopy --remove-leading-char" on the a.out library and see
if it can link with your code in ELF. For Sybase client libraries,
I did

# cd sybase/lib
# for f in *.a
do
  objcopy --remove-leading-char $f
done

It seems to compile/link fine with libc 5.4.2x. But I don't know
if it really works or not. The resulting binaries should work
if the libc ABI used by the old library is unchanged in the new
libc.

According to Bruce Milner <Bruce.Milner@genetics.utah.edu>:

Just a quick note about your example using objcopy for
sybase. The sybase a.out libraries "are" dependent on a changed
feature of the libc ABI.
 
The ctype macros changed to a byte order independent format
(little endian). In order to use the sybase libraries, one needs to
rename the the ctype table variables in the sybase library files
and link in an old version of the libc's "C-ctype.o ctype-info.o"
files.

thain@sunquest.sunquest.com put a ELF'ized version of these
libraries on 

ftp://mudshark.sunquest.com/pub/ctlib-linux-elf


Thanks.


H.J. Lu
hjl@gnu.ai.mit.edu
10/31/97