Re: A quick and probably stupid question

[Tom Williams <tomdkat at comcast dot net>]

Dave Korn wrote:
> On 21/04/2010 23:51, Tom Williams wrote:
>   
>> So, I'm wanting to build binutils 2.20.1 on a Solaris  8 (SPARC) system
>> but the system has a "partial" set of development tools installed.  gcc
>> is installed but but "ar" isn't.  There is a non-GNU linker installed as
>> well.
>>
>> I've tried doing a build of the binutils source on this system and it
>> failed complaining the "ar" can't be found.
>>     
>
>   It's used to make a static archives of libiberty, libbfd and libopcodes
> during the build, which are then used when linking the various binutils
> applications.
>   

Gotcha
>   
>> Am I out of luck in getting binutils built from source on this system,
>> requiring me to find and download a pre-built package?
>>     
>
>   The sunfreeware archive will have one.  Great site, in case you haven't run
> into it before.  http://www.sunfreeware.com/
>
>   (You could, in theory, provide some dummy app or shell script called 'ar'
> that just exits with status zero, to trick configure into thinking it has a
> working ar; then you'd run the make until it crashed out, and manually edit
> the link line to replace any references to .a files with a list of all the .a
> files it tried to add to the archive using the dummy 'ar'.... but it'd be an
> awful lot easier to just download a prebuilt package and then use that to
> build yourself an up-to-date binutils if necessary.)
>
>     cheers,
>       DaveK
>   

Thanks for the info.  I haven't downloaded anything from that site but
I've browsed it.   The thing is, I'll need to go through "channels" to
get that package installed on the system vs my building it in my home
directory work area. 

I think I'll go through "channels" and let them install binutils in the
proper place and get on with my life.  :)

Thanks again!

Tom