Why are mpfr, mpc and gmp needed for gcc?

[Jonathan Wakely]

On 2 April 2012 21:39, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
> On 2 April 2012 21:21, Tim Prince wrote:
>>  On 04/02/2012 12:35 PM, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
>>>
>>>  As it says there, the simplest way to install them is from your OS
>>> package management system.  The next best option is to use the
>>> contrib/download_prerequisites script in the GCC source.  Either of
>>> those options should ensure everything just works. The last resort,
>>> which usually causes problems for people who don't know what they're
>>> doing, is to install the support library from source.
>>
>> download_prerequisites does install from source (integrated into the gcc
>> build).  It saves a lot of annoyance over hunting for the right versions.
>>  I've used those downloads separately to configure and make installations in
>> /usr as well.
>
> Building them in-tree so gcc directly to static libs doesn't *install*

Oops, that should say "so gcc links directly"

> the libs, and so avoids the oh-so-common problem of needing to tell
> the runtime linker where shared libraries are, which is what causes
> problems for people who install the libraries separately in
> non-standard locations.
>
> Please feel free to improve the InstallingGCC wiki page if you can
> make it clearer, but please note I'm more concerned about that page
> giving users clear instructions that will result in a successful
> installation than whether it's strictly accurate or not regarding
> technicalities.