Pathetic Newbie Problem

["Ben Ocean" <lists at TheWebsons dot com>]

Hi;

Okay, I looked in the archives, but everybody else must be a lot smarter than me because I didn’t find my answer there nor in the *Installation Instructions*. Here goes. For the record, I have my own server built on RedHat 6.2. I read the following off the Web site and have these questions:

 

Like most GNU software, GCC must be configured before it can be built. This document describes the recommended configuration procedure for both native and cross targets.

>>What is the difference between *native* and *cross targets*?

We use srcdir to refer to the toplevel source directory for GCC; we use objdir to refer to the toplevel build/object directory.

>>What is the *top level source directory*? What is the *top level build/object directory*? Can someone give me an example? Shall I build on /usr/bin/ ?

First, we highly recommend that GCC be built into a separate directory than the sources which does not reside within the source tree. This is how we generally build GCC; building where srcdir == objdir should still work, but doesn't get extensive testing; building where objdir is a subdirectory of srcdir is unsupported.

>>What are we calling the *source tree*? Is this like the doc root? Or the folder from which everything is built, like /usr/bin/gcc-2.95whateveritis.

Second, when configuring a native system, either "cc" or "gcc" must be in your path or you must set CC in your environment before running configure. Otherwise the configuration scripts may fail.

>>I’m lost. What does that mean?

I’m really not as dumb as this must make me sound. I know enough UNIX to be dangerous (especially to myself), but I code in high level languages.

TIA,

BenO