In order to compile Glibc-2.1.3 later on you need to have gcc-2.95.2 installed. Although any GCC version above 2.8 would do, 2.95.2 is the highly recommended version to use. egcs-2.91.x is also known to work. If you don't have gcc-2.95.x or egcs-2.91.x you need to install gcc-2.95.2 on your normal sytem before you can compile Glibc later in this chapter.
To find out which compiler version your systems has, run the following command:
root:~# gcc --version
If you normal Linux system does not have gcc-2.95.x or egcs-2.91.x installed you need to install it now. We won't replace the current compiler on your system, but instead we will install gcc in a separate directory (/usr/local/gcc2952). This way no binaries or header files will be replaced.
After you unpacked the gcc-2.95.2 archive don't enter the newly created gcc-2.95.2 directory but stay in the $LFS/usr/src directory. Install GCC by running the following commands:
root:src# mkdir $LFS/usr/src/gcc-build
root:src# cd $LFS/usr/src/gcc-build
root:gcc-build# ../gcc-2.95.2/configure \
> --prefix=/usr/local/gcc2952 \
> --with-local-prefix=/usr/local/gcc2952 \
> --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/local/gcc2952/include/g++ \
> --enable-shared --enable-languages=c,c++
root:gcc-build# make bootstrap
root:gcc-build# make install
The GCC package contains compilers, preprocessors and the GNU C++ Library.
A compiler translates source code in text format to a format that a computer understands. After a source code file is compiled into an object file, a linker will create an executable file from one or more of these compiler generated object files.
A pre-processor pre-processes a source file, such as including the contents of header files into the source file. You generally don't do this yourself to save yourself a lot of time. You just insert a line like #include <filename>. The pre-processor file insert the contents of that file into the source file. That's one of the things a pre-processor does.
The C++ library is used by C++ programs. The C++ library contains functions that are frequently used in C++ programs. This way the programmer doesn't have to write certain functions (such as writing a string of text to the screen) from scratch every time he creates a program.