Am I crazy? Does newlib build nothing? SOLVED

[Bryan Ischo]

On 08/04/11 15:15, DJ Delorie wrote:
> Keep in mind, the toplevel configure script is NOT "newlib's configure".
>
> The top-level configure is shared between gcc, gdb, binutils, newlib,
> libstdc++, libiberty, and lots of other projects.
>
> Most of the problems elsewhere exist because linux-newlib is only
> enabled when NOT cross compiling, and the generic configure framework
> always tests a few things when building natively.  Code reuse at work! ;-)
>
>> Might I politely ask what verification of newlib is done before a
>> December release is made?  Because I can't comprehend on newlib in an
>> un-hacked form could ever work, unless it's being 'cross-compiled' on a
>> system that already has a working cross-compiler ...
> Newlib is almost NEVER built as a linux library.  That it can do so AT
> ALL is a recent change and rarely used; glibc or uClibc are the linux
> C libraries.
>
> Newlib is intended for bare-metal targets like m32c-elf, arm-elf,
> h8300-coff, etc.  For those targets, it's always cross-compiled and
> heavily (and regularly) tested.

Thank you for the response.  So in these bare-metal environments, it's 
not used as part of the bootstrapping process for building the 
compiler?  Because if it is, then there must be some way around the 
configuration problems I found when using it in this way.  Also, it's 
odd to me that so many instructions out there on the 'net indicate that 
the use of newlib in this stage of building compilers is the way to go; 
I don't understand how they ever made it work with the way the configure 
scripts require a compiler that can produce executables, unless they are 
'cheating' and pointing newlib's configure scripts to already-existing 
(host) compilers during config ...

Or maybe I am reading the wrong directions?  I'm looking at:

http://www.ifp.illinois.edu/~nakazato/tips/xgcc.html

There seems to be a confusion on my part about the difference between 
building gcc in an environment where newlib will be the C library (which 
is what I think this page is made for) and building gcc in an 
environment where glibc will be the C library (which is what I am trying 
to do, and which I thought could use newlib to break the gcc-glibc 
circular dependencies somehow).

Bryan