software usage

binutils

The latest version of binutils (2.7) will be installed on all exp trees (Ultrix 4.2A, OSF/1 3.0, SunOS 4.1.3, Irix 5.3, Solaris 2.5, AIX 3.2.5 and HPUX 10.01) on Thursday, August 1.

** NOTES:
=========
1. Many utilities in this package are also provided by the operating system.
   In order to avoid the confliction, we will add prefix "g" to all the
   utilities that installed on exp tree. (e.g. gld, gas, granlib, gstrip,
   gobjdump...)
   If you would like to use GNU utilities instead of the ones provided by
   the operating system, you could do one of the following:
   a. Explicitly specify the prefix "g", e.g. "gstrip myprogram"
   b. Create alias, e.g. "alias ld /exp/rcf/share/bin/gld"
   c. Create symbolic link to your PATH. e.g. If your ~/bin is in front of
      other directories in the PATH environment variable, you could use
      "ln -s /exp/rcf/share/bin/gsize ~/bin/size" then "size" will actually
      uses /exp/rcf/share/bin/gsize

2. Current version (if installed) will also add a "g" prefix and -2.6 suffix.
   We also create symbolic links that point g*.old to g*-2.6, where * is
   the name of the utility program.

The latest version of binutils (2.6) has been installed on all exp trees (Ultrix, OSF/1, SunOS, Irix, Solaris, AIX and HPUX)

The utilities in the package are: ld, nm, ar, ranlib, as, gasp, strings, strip, size, objcopy, objdump, c++filt, gprof, and gasp. It also includes some libraries: libbfd.a, libiberty.a and libopcodes.a. For detail of these utilities and libraries, please refer to the man pages.

1. Not all programs in binutils are supported on all platforms. Here is the NOT supported list: (We do not install if it is not working.)

=========================================
aix:     gprof is not supported
         objcopy, strip are not working
hpux:    ld is not supported
osf/1:   ld is not supported
         objcopy, strip are not working
         as causes /usr/bin/ld warning when use gcc.
sgi:     ld, gprof are not supported
solaris: all suppoerted
sunos:   all suppoerted
ultrix:  gprof is not supported
=========================================

2. Many utilities in this package are also provided by the operating system. In order to avoid the confliction, we add prefix "g" to all the utilities that installed on exp tree. (e.g. gld, gas, granlib, gstrip, gobjdump...) If you would like to use GNU utilities instead of the ones provided by the operating system, you could do one of the following: a. Explicitly specify the prefix "g", e.g. "gstrip myprogram" b. Create alias, e.g. "alias ld /exp/rcf/share/bin/gld" c. Create symbolic link to your PATH. e.g. If your ~/bin is in front of other directories in the PATH environment variable, you could use "ln -s /exp/rcf/share/bin/gsize ~/bin/size" then "size" will actually uses /exp/rcf/share/bin/gsize
3. Current version (if installed) will also add a "g" prefix and -2.5.2 suffix. We also create symbolic links that point g*-old to g*-2.5.2, where * is the name of the utility program.

Please send mail to system if you have any problem/comment about the installation. Some utilities might affact the behavior of gcc/g++, such as ar, as, nm, ld, ranlib. If you have any difficulty when compiling with gcc/g++, please send mail to system.

what is binutils?
This is a package contains various GNU compilers, assemblers, linkers, debuggers, etc., plus their support routines, definitions, and documentation. Please refer to man page to deail description of each utility.