Building Binutils & GCC in the MinGW VM

Now it's time to replace bootstrapping compiler with full-featured compiler tied to glibc and capable of building hosted code, not only freestanding code. Also new compiler will be independent from cygwin1.dll, unlike the old one.

  1. Update C:\MinGW\msys\1.0\opt\crosstool\src\build_gcc_cross.sh :

    #!/bin/bash
    export PATH=.:/usr/local/bin:/mingw/bin:/bin
    export PATH=$PATH:/c/WINDOWS/system32:/c/WINDOWS
    export PATH=$PATH:/c/WINDOWS/System32/Wbem
    export TARGET=i586-linux-gnu
    export PREFIX=/opt/crosstool/gcc-8.3.0-glibc-2.28/$TARGET
    
    cd /opt/crosstool/src/build-binutils
    find . -delete
    LDFLAGS="-Wl,-s -Wl,-static -static -static-libgcc" \
      ../binutils-2.31.1/configure --target=$TARGET \
        --prefix=$PREFIX --with-sysroot=$TARGET \
        --disable-nls
    if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
        echo "=== build script: failed to configure binutils ==="
        exit 1
    fi
    make all
    if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
        echo "=== build script: failed to make binutils ==="
        exit 1
    fi
    make install
    if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
        echo "=== build script: failed to install binutils ==="
        exit 1
    fi
    
    export PATH=$PATH:$PREFIX/bin
    cd /opt/crosstool/src/build-gcc
    find . -delete
    LDFLAGS="-Wl,-s -Wl,-static -static -static-libgcc" \
      ../gcc-8.3.0/configure --target=$TARGET --prefix=$PREFIX \
         --with-sysroot=$PREFIX --with-arch=i586 \
         --disable-sjlj-exceptions --enable-checking=release \
         --enable-linker-build-id --enable-gnu-unique-object \
         --disable-nls --enable-languages=c,c++ \
         --with-headers --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix \
         --disable-multilib -enable-__cxa_atexit \
         --disable-fixed-point \
         --disable-libmudflap --disable-libssp \
         --disable-libgomp --without-ppl --without-cloog \
         --with-gmp=/usr/local --with-mpfr=/usr/local \
         --with-mpc=/usr/local
    if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
        echo "=== build script: failed to configure gcc ==="
        exit 1
    fi
    make
    if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
        echo "=== build script: failed to make gcc ==="
        exit 1
    fi
    make install
    if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
        echo "=== build script: failed to install gcc ==="
        exit 1
    fi
    
    echo "=== build script: OK ==="
    

  2. Run C:\MinGW\msys\1.0\opt\crosstool\src\build_gcc_cross.cmd and wait until it completes.
  3. If there are no errors, shutdown the MinGW VM and make snapshot "SNAP-D".

Notes:

  • Multilib is a special feature of GCC to allow building 32-bit targets on x86_64 platform. We don't use that one; we build two distinct cross-compilers instead.
  • LDFLAGS="-Wl,-s -Wl,-static -static -static-libgcc" option prevents dynamic linking to libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll (runtime library of MinGW) and also automatically strips EXE files at build time.

Additional steps to support 64-bit Linux target platform:

  1. Replace TARGET=i586-linux-gnu with TARGET=x86_64-linux-gnu and remove "--with-arch=i586" in build_gcc_cross.sh
  2. Run C:\MinGW\msys\1.0\opt\crosstool\src\build_gcc_cross.cmd and wait until it completes.
  3. If there are no errors, shutdown the MinGW VM and make snapshot "SNAP-E".


>> Read next section or buy already prepared cross-compiler (€10) to save your time.