There are two fixdep.c files, one in basic scripts and the other in tools. I exported gcc option '-fPIC' in an attempt to get past the linker error, and it was in effect for the basic script, but was not passed to the tools script. The follow output is from a log of the build process:
grep fixdep make-kernel.log gcc -Wp,-MD,scripts/basic/.fixdep.d -Wall -Wmissing-prototypes -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -std=gnu89 -fPIC -o scripts/basic/fixdep scripts/basic/fixdep.c ... (build proceeds) make -C /usr/src/linux-source-4.18/tools/build CFLAGS= LDFLAGS= /usr/src/linux-source-4.18/tools/objtool/fixdep HOSTCC /usr/src/linux-source-4.18/tools/objtool/fixdep.o HOSTLD /usr/src/linux-source-4.18/tools/objtool/fixdep-in.o LINK /usr/src/linux-source-4.18/tools/objtool/fixdep /usr/bin/ld: /usr/src/linux-source-4.18/tools/objtool/fixdep-in.o: relocation R_X86_64_32 against `.rodata.str1.1' can not be used when making a PIE object; recompile with -fPIC make[6]: *** [Makefile:46: /usr/src/linux-source-4.18/tools/objtool/fixdep] Error 1 make[5]: *** [/usr/src/linux-source-4.18/tools/build/Makefile.include:4: fixdep] Error 2
