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 <?dbhtml filename="toolchaintechnotes.html"?>
+<para>See testing</para>
+<para>This section explains some of the rationale and technical
+details behind the overall build method. It is not essential to
+immediately understand everything in this section. Most of this
+information will be clearer after performing an actual build. This
+section can be referred back to at any time during the process.</para>
+<para>The overall goal of <xref linkend="chapter-temporary-tools"/> is
+to provide a temporary environment that can be chrooted into and from
+which can be produced a clean, trouble-free build of the target LFS
+system in <xref linkend="chapter-building-system"/>. Along the way, we
+separate from the host system as much as possible, and in doing so,
+build a self-contained and self-hosted toolchain. It should be noted
+that the build process has been designed to minimize the risks for new
+readers and provide maximum educational value at the same time. In
+other words, more advanced techniques could be used to build the
+system.</para>
+<important>
+<para>Before continuing, be aware of the name of the working platform,
+often referred to as the target triplet. Many times, the target
+triplet will probably be <emphasis>i686-pc-linux-gnu</emphasis>. A
+simple way to determine the name of the target triplet is to run the
+<command>config.guess</command> script that comes with the source for
+many packages. Unpack the Binutils sources and run the script:
+<userinput>./config.guess</userinput> and note the output.</para>
+<para>Also be aware of the name of the platform's dynamic linker,
+often referred to as the dynamic loader (not to be confused with the
+standard linker <command>ld</command> that is part of Binutils). The
+dynamic linker provided by Glibc finds and loads the shared libraries
+needed by a program, prepares the program to run, and then runs it.
+The name of the dynamic linker will usually be
+<filename class="libraryfile">ld-linux.so.2</filename>. On platforms that are less
+prevalent, the name might be <filename class="libraryfile">ld.so.1</filename>,
+and newer 64 bit platforms might be named something else entirely. The name of
+the platform's dynamic linker can be determined by looking in the
+<filename class="directory">/lib</filename> directory on the host
+system. A sure-fire way to determine the name is to inspect a random
+binary from the host system by running: <userinput>readelf -l &lt;name
+of binary&gt; | grep interpreter</userinput> and noting the output.
+The authoritative reference covering all platforms is in the
+<filename>shlib-versions</filename> file in the root of the Glibc
+source tree.</para>
+</important>
+<para>Some key technical points of how the <xref linkend="chapter-temporary-tools"/> build
+method works:</para>
+<itemizedlist>
+<listitem><para>The process is similar in principle to
+cross-compiling, whereby tools installed in the same prefix work in
+cooperation, and thus utilize a little GNU
+<quote>magic</quote></para></listitem>
+<listitem><para>Careful manipulation of the standard linker's library
+search path ensures programs are linked only against chosen
+libraries</para></listitem>
+<listitem><para>Careful manipulation of <command>gcc</command>'s
+<filename>specs</filename> file tell the compiler which target dynamic
+linker will be used</para></listitem>
+</itemizedlist>
+<para>Binutils is installed first because the
+<command>./configure</command> runs of both GCC and Glibc perform
+various feature tests on the assembler and linker to determine which
+software features to enable or disable. This is more important than
+one might first realize. An incorrectly configured GCC or Glibc can
+result in a subtly broken toolchain, where the impact of such breakage
+might not show up until near the end of the build of an entire
+distribution. A test suite failure will usually alert this error
+before too much additional work is performed.</para>
+<para>Binutils installs its assembler and linker in two locations,
+<filename class="directory">/tools/bin</filename> and <filename
+class="directory">/tools/$TARGET_TRIPLET/bin</filename>. The tools in
+one location are hard linked to the other. An important facet of the
+linker is its library search order. Detailed information can be
+obtained from <command>ld</command> by passing it the
+<parameter>--verbose</parameter> flag. For example, an <userinput>ld
+--verbose | grep SEARCH</userinput> will illustrate the current search
+paths and their order. It shows which files are linked by
+<command>ld</command> by compiling a dummy program and passing the
+<parameter>--verbose</parameter> switch to the linker. For example,
+<userinput>gcc dummy.c -Wl,--verbose 2&gt;&amp;1 | grep
+succeeded</userinput> will show all the files successfully opened
+during the linking.</para>
+<para>The next package installed is GCC. An example of what can be
+seen during its run of <command>./configure</command> is:</para>
+<screen><computeroutput>checking what assembler to use...
+        /tools/i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin/as
+checking what linker to use... /tools/i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld</computeroutput></screen>
+<para>This is important for the reasons mentioned above. It also
+demonstrates that GCC's configure script does not search the PATH
+directories to find which tools to use. However, during the actual
+operation of <command>gcc</command> itself, the same
+search paths are not necessarily used. To find out which standard
+linker <command>gcc</command> will use, run: <userinput>gcc
+-print-prog-name=ld</userinput>.</para>
+<para>Detailed information can be obtained from <command>gcc</command>
+by passing it the <parameter>-v</parameter> command line option while
+compiling a dummy program. For example, <userinput>gcc -v
+dummy.c</userinput> will show detailed information about the
+preprocessor, compilation, and assembly stages, including
+<command>gcc</command>'s included search paths and their order.</para>
+<para>The next package installed is Glibc. The most important
+considerations for building Glibc are the compiler, binary tools, and
+kernel headers. The compiler is generally not an issue since Glibc
+will always use the <command>gcc</command> found in a
+<envar>PATH</envar> directory.
+The binary tools and kernel headers can be a bit more complicated.
+Therefore, take no risks and use the available configure switches to
+enforce the correct selections. After the run of
+<command>./configure</command>, check the contents of the
+<filename>config.make</filename> file in the <filename
+class="directory">glibc-build</filename> directory for all important
+details. Note the use of <parameter>CC="gcc -B/tools/bin/"</parameter>
+to control which binary tools are used and the use of the
+<parameter>-nostdinc</parameter> and <parameter>-isystem</parameter>
+flags to control the compiler's include search path. These items
+highlight an important aspect of the Glibc package&mdash;it is very
+self-sufficient in terms of its build machinery and generally does not
+rely on toolchain defaults.</para>
+<para>After the Glibc installation, make some adjustments to ensure
+that searching and linking take place only within the <filename
+class="directory">/tools</filename> prefix.  Install an adjusted
+<command>ld</command>, which has a hard-wired search path limited to
+<filename class="directory">/tools/lib</filename>. Then amend
+<command>gcc</command>'s specs file to point to the new dynamic linker
+in <filename class="directory">/tools/lib</filename>. This last step
+is vital to the whole process. As mentioned above, a hard-wired path
+to a dynamic linker is embedded into every Executable and Link Format
+(ELF)-shared executable.  This can be inspected by running:
+<userinput>readelf -l &lt;name of binary&gt; | grep
+interpreter</userinput>. Amending gcc's specs file
+ensures that every program compiled from here through the end of this
+chapter will use the new dynamic linker in <filename
+class="directory">/tools/lib</filename>.</para>
+<para>The need to use the new dynamic linker is also the reason why
+the Specs patch is applied for the second pass of GCC. Failure to do
+so will result in the GCC programs themselves having the name of the
+dynamic linker from the host system's <filename
+class="directory">/lib</filename> directory embedded into them, which
+would defeat the goal of getting away from the host.</para>
+<para>During the second pass of Binutils, we are able to utilize the
+<parameter>--with-lib-path</parameter> configure switch to control
+<command>ld</command>'s library search path.  From this point onwards,
+the core toolchain is self-contained and self-hosted. The remainder of
+the <xref linkend="chapter-temporary-tools"/> packages all build
+against the new Glibc in <filename
+class="directory">/tools</filename>.</para>
+<para>Upon entering the chroot environment in <xref
+linkend="chapter-building-system"/>, the first major package to be
+installed is Glibc, due to its self-sufficient nature mentioned above.
+Once this Glibc is installed into <filename
+class="directory">/usr</filename>, perform a quick changeover of the
+toolchain defaults, then proceed in building the rest of the target
+LFS system.</para>
+<sect2>
+<title>Notes on Static Linking</title>
+<para>Besides their specific task, most programs have to perform many
+common and sometimes trivial operations. These include allocating
+memory, searching directories, reading and writing files, string
+handling, pattern matching, arithmetic, and other tasks. Instead of
+obliging each program to reinvent the wheel, the GNU system provides
+all these basic functions in ready-made libraries. The major library
+on any Linux system is Glibc.</para>
+<para>There are two primary ways of linking the functions from a
+library to a program that uses them&mdash;statically or dynamically. When
+a program is linked statically, the code of the used functions is
+included in the executable, resulting in a rather bulky program. When
+a program is dynamically linked, it includes a reference to the
+dynamic linker, the name of the library, and the name of the function,
+resulting in a much smaller executable. A third option is to use the
+programming interface of the dynamic linker (see the
+<emphasis>dlopen</emphasis> man page for more information).</para>
+<para>Dynamic linking is the default on Linux and has three major
+advantages over static linking. First, only one copy of the executable
+library code is needed on the hard disk, instead of having multiple
+copies of the same code included in several programs, thus saving
+disk space. Second, when several programs use the same library
+function at the same time, only one copy of the function's code is
+required in core, thus saving memory space. Third, when a library
+function gets a bug fixed or is otherwise improved, only the one
+library needs to be recompiled instead of recompiling all programs
+that make use of the improved function.</para>
+<para>If dynamic linking has several advantages, why then do we
+statically link the first two packages in this chapter? The reasons
+are threefold&mdash;historical, educational, and technical. The
+historical reason is that earlier versions of LFS statically linked
+every program in this chapter. Educationally, knowing the difference
+between static and dynamic linking is useful. The technical benefit is
+a gained element of independence from the host, meaning that those
+programs can be used independently of the host system. However, it is
+worth noting that an overall successful LFS build can still be
+achieved when the first two packages are built dynamically.</para>
+</sect2>
 </sect1>

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