Re: Serious Bugs In Gcc Builds

["Peter A. Friend" <octavian at corp dot earthlink dot net>]

On Dec 4, 2007, at 11:00 AM, Thomas Dineen wrote:

>        By the way don't bother flaming back at me I am way beyond
> this and thus impervious! Hopefully by fixing the issues documented
> below you will open up the GCC software to be usable by a larger
> audience of users.

Well, if one politely requests help it generally will not result in  
flames.

> Issue 1) The configure and build scripts insist (read that fight to  
> the
> death) on using the solaris linker (/usr/ccs/bin/ld) despite every
> effort to the contrary, and this of course causes errors. The  
> following
> were my failed efforts to redirect it to the Gnu Linker (/opt/sfw/ 
> bin/gld):
> a) Providing explicit command line direction to configure.
> /export/home/tools/gcc/gcc-4.0.4/configure  --with-gnu-ld  --with- 
> gnu-as
> --with-as=/opt/sfw/bin/as --with-ld=/opt/sfw/bin/ld
> b) Provide links in the object directory attempting to redirect it:
> ln -s /opt/sfw/bin/gld ld
> c) Provide links in the executable directory attempting to redirect  
> it:
> ln -s gld ld
> d) Reordering the path so that the Gnu Tools would appear first.
> e) Removing the Solaris Linker from the path.

Why do you wish to use GNU ld and as? On Solaris systems I have  
always used Sun ld and as, and if I recall correctly, the older GCC  
documentation would tell you to do that. I don't immediately recall  
what the issue was, and I don't know if it's still an issue. If there  
is a specific need to use GNU ld and as then perhaps someone else can  
chime in on this one.

> Issue 4)  What's In A Name? Or what the hell should we name it?
> When I down load and install various  releases of GNU Bintools a
> tool like GNU Make is sometimes called gmake and sometimes called
> make. This causes confusion and thus errors in that the Gcc build  
> scripts
> use make. I would suggest standardizing on the names to prevent  
> confusion.
> To this end I would suggest that GNU Make always, always, always be
> called gmake and when you want to use GNU Make in your project that
> you type gmake.

I don't see how this is a GNU bug, it's more of a development  
environment issue. When we install GNU make we install it as "make"  
and also provide a hard link as "gmake". If it was only installed as  
gmake then people would have to alter all of their stuff (something  
they may not have access to do) to call gmake.

For my Solaris environment I have the GNU tools in my path first,  
followed by /usr/ccs/bin. This makes sure that GNU versions of m4,  
grep, sed and make are used, and Sun versions of as and ld are used.


> Issue 5) The build process is way to complicated for the average user
> to negotiate successfully. The user interface should be simplified  
> to the
> following for a native compiler:
> ./configure
> gmake
> gmake install

The build procedure for GCC can be cumbersome. There are a lot of  
options, a lot of systems to support, and a lot of ways for the  
procedure to break. This in itself is an argument against average  
users trying to attempt builds themselves.

Cheers,

Peter