Re: [gentoo-doc] Re: Toolchain guide?

[Mike Frysinger]

On Friday 28 July 2006 04:30, Marc Blumentritt wrote:
> The toolchain is arch-specific?

that depends on what you mean by "arch-specific"

binutils/gcc/glibc all use the same source code from upstream/build system 
regardless of arch, but the same version may not work correctly on all 
architectures

> I suspected this, but you confirmed it
> and for me this is one more reason for a guide to the toolchain! Perhaps
> it should be part of the Gentoo Handbook, since this is already arch
> specific?

i dont really understand what it is you're trying to document or what you 
think you're trying to document

> 0) Introduction
> Binaries vs. scripts? Why binaries?

this question is answered in other Gentoo documents ... normally referred to 
as "why from source" or "source vs binaries"

> What are libs and what is dynamic
> linking vs. static linking (this is important for rebuilding your
> system)?

static vs dynamic libs is not related to Gentoo at all ... all operating 
systems deal with this question

> Why is Gentoo source based? Why is this so cool compared to
> binary based?

same questions as what you posted first in this section

> 1) What is the toolchain aka how to build binaries?
> <snip>
> Put these programs in the correct order for the build process. If you
> <snip>

again, not Gentoo specific ... but might be useful i think

> Helper programs
> Why are they needed

a better question: *what* helper programs ?

> Arch-Specific
> Why is the toolchain different from arch to arch?

i dont understand this at all ... of course the toolchain will be different as 
no cpu is the same so generating code for a powerpc cpu will not work on an 
amd64

> List of arch specific programs

there are none

> 2) How does Gentoo handle the Toolchain?
> Short discription of portage (ebuild (the script), emerge, ebuilds (the
> build instructions), eclasses, USE-flags, ...). Perhaps something about
> the new alternatives to emerge (or was it portage)?

a high level view might be useful, but getting into the ebuild guts would not 
cater to the general user at all ... plus we toolchain guys like to rewrite 
things all the time and updating the docs for people outside of the toolchain 
herd would be a waste of our time ... if someone felt like just doing that 
though, that would be useful

> What about compilation options (CHOST, CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS)? What to do,
> if you want to change these? Not a complete list of options (that's
> gnu.org for), but the general way, how Gentoo handles these, sane
> compilation options. What to do, if you change these and why could this
> be critical for your system? How to rebuild your system (twice? world?)?

i think we already have a section touching on these topics

> 3) How does Portage handle updates of Toolchain packages?

people shouldnt care ... it should always "just work"
-mike