%general-entities; ]> GCC tools, pass 1 The GCC documentation recommends building GCC outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory: mkdir -v ../gcc-build cd ../gcc-build Test to see if the host is a multilib capable machine and set a variable if it is. This ensures that only 64-bit binaries are built if using such a host. Also, the --with-arch flag is only necessary for x86 machines. case $(uname -m) in x86) WITHARCH="--with-arch=i486" ;; x86_64) M64="-m64" ;; esac Prepare GCC for compilation: CC="gcc -B/usr/bin/ $M64" ../gcc-&gcc-version;/configure --prefix=/tools \ --with-local-prefix=/tools --disable-nls --disable-shared \ --enable-languages=c --disable-multilib \ $WITHARCH unset M64 WITHARCH CC="gcc -B/usr/bin/" This forces gcc to prefer the linker from the host in /usr/bin. This is necessary on some hosts where the new ld built in the previous section is not compatible with the host's gcc. --with-local-prefix=/tools The purpose of this switch is to remove /usr/local/include from gcc's include search path. This is not absolutely essential, however, it helps to minimize the influence of the host system. --disable-shared This forces gcc to link its internal libraries statically. We do this to avoid possible issues with the host system. --enable-languages=c This option ensures that only the C compiler is built. --disable-multilib We currently only want to build support for 64-bit libraries. --with-arch=i486 On x86 machines Glibc needs to be built for a minimum architecture of i486. Setting this for the GCC build ensures that the entire system is built consistently. Continue with compiling the package: make Compilation is now complete. At this point, the test suite would normally be run, but, as mentioned before, the test suite framework is not in place yet. The benefits of running the tests at this point are minimal since the programs from this first pass will soon be replaced. Install the package: make install Using --disable-shared means that the file libgcc_eh.a isn't created and installed. The next package, Glibc, depends on this library as it uses -lgcc_eh within its build system. We can satisfy that dependency by creating a symlink to libgcc.a, since that file will end up containing the objects normally contained in libgcc_eh.a. ln -vs libgcc.a `gcc -print-libgcc-file-name | \ sed 's/libgcc/&_eh/'` As a finishing touch, create a symlink. Many programs and scripts run cc instead of gcc, which is used to keep programs generic and therefore usable on all kinds of UNIX systems where the GNU C compiler is not always installed. Running cc leaves the system administrator free to decide which C compiler to install: ln -vs gcc /tools/bin/cc