I don't understand the instructions

[edbird]

I really can't understand from the instructions what to do.

I am running a Debian 11 system. The output of objdump --info | grep coff-i386 is blank. From this I assume I do not have a copy of binutils which supports coff-i386.

So what should I do next?

I won't go into explaining what I tried to do because this will just confuse matters.

[taviso]

Yes, sorry about that - Debian don't enable coff-i386 support, if they did building would be very easy :(

• First, you need to build your own copy of binutils, download and extract this: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/binutils-2.38.tar.xz
• You need to build binutils with ./configure --enable-targets=all and then make.
• Now copy the objcopy and objdump binaries you just built from the binutils directory into the 123elf directory.
• Now copy ld-new from the ld directory into the 12elf directory, but rename it ld.

That should work, and now you can build it.

[taviso]

Oh - you can try just running the binutils.sh script, it might work but hasn't had much testing.

[edbird]

I have done both of the first two points: However I do not see any files called objcopy or objdump in the directory binutils-2.38. What am I missing?

Is this relevant?

WARNING: 'makeinfo' is missing on your system.

You should only need it if you modified a '.texi' file,...

Makefile:1466 doc/as.info Error 127

Sorry I can't copy and paste these from the VM in which this is running.

[edbird]

/home/user/Downloads/binutils-2.38/missing: 81: makeinfo: not found
WARNING: 'makeinfo' is missing on your system.
         You should only need it if you modified a '.texi' file, or
         any other file indirectly affecting the aspect of the manual.
         You might want to install the Texinfo package:
         <http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/>
         The spurious makeinfo call might also be the consequence of
         using a buggy 'make' (AIX, DU, IRIX), in which case you might
         want to install GNU make:
         <http://www.gnu.org/software/make/>
make[4]: *** [Makefile:1466: doc/as.info] Error 127
make[4]: Leaving directory '/home/user/Downloads/binutils-2.38/gas'
make[3]: *** [Makefile:1648: all-recursive] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory '/home/user/Downloads/binutils-2.38/gas'
make[2]: *** [Makefile:994: all] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/user/Downloads/binutils-2.38/gas'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:5430: all-gas] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/user/Downloads/binutils-2.38'
make: *** [Makefile:1000: all] Error 2

[taviso]

I think it's okay to ignore it - you don't need the documentation. I would just do make -i to say ignore the errors.

The objcopy and objdump binaries will be in the binutils directory, ld-new will be in the ld directory. Remember to rename ld-new to ld when you copy it.

[mparson]

FWIW, I used your binutils.sh script on my Fedora 35 box and it worked perfectly.

[edbird]

I've had a play around with it again today. Telling make to ignore the errors fixed the build. Interesting program - thanks for bringing back a piece of history