lfs-book/chapter05/binutils-inst.xml

<sect2>
<title>Installation of Binutils</title>

<para>This package is known to behave badly when you have changed its default
optimization flags (including the -march and -mcpu options). Binutils is
best left alone. Therefore, if you have defined any environment variables
that override default optimizations, such as CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, we
recommend unsetting or modifying them when building binutils. You have been
warned.</para>

<para>It is recommended by the Binutils installation documentation to build
Binutils outside of the source directory in a dedicated directory:</para>

<para><screen><userinput>mkdir ../binutils-build
cd ../binutils-build</userinput></screen></para>

<para>Next, prepare Binutils to be compiled:</para>

<para><screen><userinput>../binutils-&binutils-version;/configure --prefix=$LFS/static --disable-nls</userinput></screen></para>

<para>The meaning of the (new) configure switches are:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><userinput>--disable-nls:</userinput> This option disables
internationalization (also known as i18n). We don't need this for our
static programs and nls often causes problems when you're linking
statically.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>We'll finish off by compiling and installing the package:</para>

<para><screen><userinput>make LDFLAGS="-all-static" &amp;&amp;
make install</userinput></screen></para>

<para><emphasis>make LDFLAGS="-all-static"</emphasis> is how we tell
Binutils that all programs should be statically linked. Setting the
<emphasis>LDFLAGS</emphasis> variable is the common way of specifying we
want a static link to take place, however, its value and the way it is set
is not always the same. You'll see with the remaining packages that there
are different ways of setting up the <emphasis>LDFLAGS</emphasis>
variable.</para>

</sect2>