I tested different packages in debian and noticed that gold always links against some libraries which aren't used and I never specified. I also tested to use --as-needed and it didn't change that weird behavior. This doesn't happen with the old binutils linker Example output from zlib: dpkg-shlibdeps: warning: dependency on libgcc_s.so.1 could be avoided if "debian/zlib1g/usr/lib/libz.so.1.2.3.3" were not uselessly linked against it (they use none of its symbols). dpkg-shlibdeps: warning: dependency on ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 could be avoided if "debian/zlib1g/usr/lib/libz.so.1.2.3.3" were not uselessly linked against it (they use none of its symbols). dpkg-shlibdeps: warning: dependency on libgcc_s.so.1 could be avoided if "debian/zlib-bin/usr/bin/miniunzip debian/zlib- bin/usr/bin/minizip" were not uselessly linked against it (they use none of its symbols). dpkg-shlibdeps: warning: dependency on ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 could be avoided if "debian/zlib-bin/usr/bin/miniunzip debian/zlib-bin/usr/bin/minizip" were not uselessly linked against it (they use none of its symbols). dpkg-shlibdeps: warning: dependency on libgcc_s.so.1 could be avoided if "debian/zlib1g-udeb/usr/lib/libz.so.1.2.3.3" were not uselessly linked against it (they use none of its symbols). dpkg-shlibdeps: warning: dependency on libgcc_s.so.1 could be avoided if "debian/lib32z1/usr/lib32/libz.so.1.2.3.3" were not uselessly linked against it (they use none of its symbols). dpkg-shlibdeps: warning: dependency on ld-linux.so.2 could be avoided if "debian/lib32z1/usr/lib32/libz.so.1.2.3.3" were not uselessly linked against it (they use none of its symbols). I had also a different package which also linked against libICE without any visible reason, but cannot find it again at the moment Downstream bug is http://bugs.debian.org/553436
It seems to be that it is partly related to the problem that --as-needed doesn't remove files which aren't really needed by the executable. So a simple echo "int main() {return 0;}" > testme.c gcc -Wl,--as-needed testme.c -o testme -lglib-2.0 will link against glib-2.0 even if it is not used. So readelf -d testme|grep -e '(NEEDED)' -e 'glib-2.0' will not be an empty string. But this doesn't explain libgcc_s.so.1 and ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
Thanks for the bug report. I fixed --as-needed, and this problem should now be fixed. libgcc_s.so.1 is used with --as-needed by the gcc driver. ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 is used with --as-needed by /usr/lib/libc.so.