This is the public release of binutils 2.8.1.0.23 for Linux, which is
based on the binutils 980303 snapshot plus Linux/ARM support. You
also need libc 5.4.44 or above to use the precompiled binaries for
libc 5 or glibc 2.0.6 or above to use the precompiled binaries for
glibc 2.

There was some problem on Linux/alpha. It turned out it was a bug
in the alpha dynamic linker in glibc 2.0.6. The current glibc 2.1
and glibc 2.0.7 should be ok.

This release should work on linux/x86 and linux/alpha. There are some
ELF bug fixes. But I don't know if it fixes all the bugs reported on
linux/sparc, Linux/MIPS and linux/PPC. I'd like to hear reports on them.

This release is required by egcs on Linux/x86.

Please report any bugs related to binutils 2.8.1.0.23 to hjl@gnu.org.

Changes from binutils 2.8.1.0.15:

1. Update from the binutils gas-980303.
2. Fix the ARM/Thumb disassembler bug.
3. Support the '.' prefix in symbol name in the version script.
4. Some assembler optimization for dwarf based exception. The resulting
   binaries work on my machine. Please double check it using C++ in
   egcs or gcc 2.8.0 to see if there is any size reduction in the size
   of .o file and the executable.
5. The ARM/ELF support.
6. Fix a.out symbol aliase.
7. Fix -r with .gnu.linkonce.d* and .gnu.linkonce.t* sections on ELF
   objects.

IMPORTANT:
The .plt format that the Alpha was using was not thread safe.  So I 
changed it.  The new format is *not* binary compatible with the old,
thus you must use glibc 2.0.6 to get an ld.so that can understand it.

Note that the new ld.so knows how to deal with the old .plt format, so
old libraries will still work, but they should be relinked eventually
for performance reasons.
Please do remember to remove /usr/bin/encaps first. Please also
remove /usr/bin/nm first, which may be a symbolic link in some
Linux distributions.

The file list:

1. binutils-2.8.1.0.23.tar.gz. Source code.
2. binutils-2.8.1.0.15-2.8.1.0.23.diff.gz. Patch against the previous
   source code.
3. binutils-2.8.1.0.23.bin.tar.gz. Precompiled Linux/x86 binaries for
   libc 5.
4. binutils-2.8.1.0.23-glibc.bin.tar.gz. Precompiled Linux/x86 binaries
   for libc 6 (glibc 2.0.6 or above).

The primary ftp sites for the compiler/C library are tsx-11.mit.edu
under pub/linux/packages/GCC and sunsite.unc.edu under pub/Linux/GCC.

To install this package, please follow the procedure very closely.
Please backup/save all the files you are instructed to delete and you
should do

	gzip -dc binutils-2.8.1.0.23.bin.tar.gz | tar tvvf -

or
	gzip -dc binutils-2.8.1.0.23-glibc.bin.tar.gz | tar tvvf -

to see what is in there.

Please do back up before you remove things.

To install for libc 5, PLEASE DO

1. su root
2. cd /
3. rm -f /usr/bin/encaps /usr/bin/nm
4. gzip -dc binutils-2.8.1.0.23.bin.tar.gz | tar xvvf -

To install for libc 6 (glibc 2.0.6 or above), PLEASE DO

1. su root
2. cd /
3. rm -f /usr/bin/encaps /usr/bin/nm
4. gzip -dc binutils-2.8.1.0.23-glibc.bin.tar.gz | tar xvvf -

Now you have the new gas/binutils under /usr/bin and
/usr/ix86-linuxaout/bin. You have to use

/usr/ix86-linuxaout/bin/as

and

/usr/ix86-linuxaout/bin/ld -m i386linux

if you want to use a.out as and ld directly.

I have changed the target names for Linux/x86 and Linux/x86 (a.out)
to ix86-linux and ix86-linuxaout respectively. The precompiled
binaries are installed under /usr/ix86-linux and /usr/ix86-linuxaout.
You should make appropriate symbolic links if you have a different
name for the Linux/x86 target, like i586-unknown-linux.

If you have an old linux library in the a.out format and you cannot
obtain the newer version in the ELF format for whatever reason, you
can try "objcopy --remove-leading-char" on the a.out library and see
if it can link with your code in ELF. For Sybase client libraries,
I did

# cd sybase/lib
# for f in *.a
do
  objcopy --remove-leading-char $f
done

It seems to compile/link fine with libc 5.4.2x. But I don't know
if it really works or not. The resulting binaries should work
if the libc ABI used by the old library is unchanged in the new
libc.

According to Bruce Milner <Bruce.Milner@genetics.utah.edu>:

Just a quick note about your example using objcopy for
sybase. The sybase a.out libraries "are" dependent on a changed
feature of the libc ABI.
 
The ctype macros changed to a byte order independent format
(little endian). In order to use the sybase libraries, one needs to
rename the the ctype table variables in the sybase library files
and link in an old version of the libc's "C-ctype.o ctype-info.o"
files.

thain@sunquest.sunquest.com put a ELF'ized version of these
libraries on 

ftp://mudshark.sunquest.com/pub/ctlib-linux-elf


Thanks.


H.J. Lu
hjl@gnu.org
03/11/98