-This is a BETA release of a completely rewritten binutils distribution.
+This is a beta release of a completely rewritten binutils distribution.
The linker (ld) has been moved into a separate directory,
which should be ../ld. Linker-specific notes are in ../ld/README.
that are missing on the new programs. We would appreciate
patches to make things run on other machines; especially welcome
are fixes for what used to work on the old programs!
+(See ./TODO, as well a ../bfd/TODO and ../ld/TODO.)
+
+Recent changes are in ./NEWS.
Unpacking and Installation -- quick overview
==========================
In this release, the binary utilities, the linker, the generic GNU include
-files, the BFD ("binary file description") library, and getopt all have
-directories of their own underneath the binutils-2.0 directory.
+files, the BFD ("binary file description") library, gprof, and getopt all
+have directories of their own underneath the binutils-2.1 directory.
The idea is that a variety of GNU tools can
share a common copy of these things. Configuration scripts and
makefiles exist to cruise up and down this directory tree and
automatically build all the pieces in the right order.
-When you unpack the binutils-2.0.tar.Z file, you'll get a directory called
-something like `binutils-2.0', which contains:
+When you unpack the binutils-2.1.tar.Z file, you'll get a directory called
+something like `binutils-2.1', which contains:
DOC.configure README config/ configure* ld/
Makefile bfd/ config.status* configure.in libiberty/
To build binutils, you can just do:
- cd binutils-2.0
- ./configure HOSTTYPE (e.g. sun4, decstation)
+ cd binutils-2.1
+ ./configure [ --with-minimal-bfd=yes ]
make
make install # copies the programs files into /usr/local/bin by default.
+The --with-minimal-bfd-yes flag is a temporary kludge. Using it makes
+the executables smaller, at the price of only being able to handle
+the default binary file format. A more flexible mechanism is planned.
+
This will configure and build all the libraries as well as binutils
and the linker.
Porting
=======
-Binutils-2.0 supports many different architectures, but there
+Binutils-2.1 supports many different architectures, but there
are many more not supported, including some that were supported
by earlier versions. We are hoping for volunteers to
improve this situation.
The major effort in porting binutils to a new host and/or target
architecture involves the BFD library. There is some documentation
in ../bfd/doc. The file ../gdb/doc/gdbint.texinfo (distributed
-with gdb-3.2) may also be of help.
+with gdb-4.x) may also be of help.
If your system uses some variant of old-style a.out-format,
you can start with a copy of bfd/newsos3.c, and edit it to fit.
==============
If you can't track down a bug and send suggestions/patches
for fixes, you should probably *not* be using this release.
-I cannot work on finding bugs at this stage (except for
-Cygnus-supported configurations). But if you have suggestions
-or patches, send them to bothner@cygnus.com, for now.
-(After the official release, the correct address will
-be bug-gnu-utils@ai.mit.edu.)
+We have little time to spend tracking down whatever random bugs you
+may run into (except for configurations that Cygnus supports for
+its customers). The general place to send bug reports or patches
+is to bug-gnu-utils@ai.mit.edu; you can also send them directly to
+bothner@cygnus.com or sac@cygnus.com.
+
+