Details on this package are located in Section 6.14.2, “Contents of GCC.”
The GCC package contains the GNU compiler collection, which includes the C and C++ compilers.
This package is known to have issues when its default optimization flags (including the -march and -mcpu options) are changed. If any environment variables that override default optimizations have been defined, such as CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, unset them when building GCC.
The GCC documentation recommends building GCC outside of the source directory in a dedicated build directory:
mkdir ../gcc-build cd ../gcc-build
Prepare GCC for compilation:
../gcc-3.4.3/configure --prefix=/tools \
--libexecdir=/tools/lib --with-local-prefix=/tools \
--disable-nls --enable-shared --enable-languages=c
The meaning of the configure options:
The purpose of this switch is to remove /usr/local/include from gcc's include search path. This is not absolutely essential, however, it helps to minimize the influence of the host system.
This switch allows the building of libgcc_s.so.1 and libgcc_eh.a. Having libgcc_eh.a available ensures that the configure script for Glibc (the next package we compile) produces the proper results.
This option ensures that only the C compiler is built.
Continue with compiling the package:
make bootstrap
The meaning of the make parameters:
This target does not just compile GCC, but compiles it several times. It uses the programs compiled in a first round to compile itself a second time, and then again a third time. It then compares these second and third compiles to make sure it can reproduce itself flawlessly. This also implies that it was compiled correctly.
Compilation is now complete. At this point, the test suite would normally be run, but, as mentioned before, the test suite framework is not in place yet. The benefits of running the tests at this point are minimal since the programs from this first pass will soon be replaced.
Install the package:
make install
As a finishing touch, create a symlink. Many programs and scripts run cc instead of gcc, which is used to keep programs generic and therefore usable on all kinds of UNIX systems where the GNU C compiler is not always installed. Running cc leaves the system administrator free to decide which C compiler to install.
ln -s gcc /tools/bin/cc
Details on this package are located in Section 6.14.2, “Contents of GCC.”