Hi, I know that some people are working on a GCC port for Minix v3, but I'd like to work on a cross-compiler for my own purposes. I'd like the host and build to be i686-pc-linux-gnu, and the target to be i[3456]86-pc-minix3.
Can anyone give me some advice on where to begin and what info I need? The most obvious issue is that binutils needs to be aware of the Minix 3 a.out object file format, unless I tweak things so that a program that converts statically linked ELF object files into a.out object files runs automatically after a build. I'm not sure what the best approach would be. There are probably some good docs out there on making a new cross-compile target, but I haven't found them. Do they exist, and if yes where are they? What new files do I need to help GCC build for a Minix 3 target, what do I put in them, where can I learn about writing a specs file for Minix 3, etc. Does anyone here have a knowledge of creating a new output object format for binutils? I would guess that I will be patching binutils to accept new command line options, arranging for BFD to write a.out files, and maybe other things. Again, not sure where to begin. I would like to use the GCC 4 series, and binutils 2.16.1+. The goal is to get a cross compiler to build for a Minix 3 system on i3[456]86 systems that runs on a GNU/Linux system, so I can use it to build all sorts of other programs for a Minix 3 system that I can't compile on Minix 3, like most of the GNU programs, as well as the latest Perl and Python, etc, so I can end up with a GNU/Minix 3 system. From there when everything is built, tested and installed, I should be able to use the GNU/Minix 3 system itself to be self-hosting. Thanks for your help. James Buchanan
