Hello, and a pleasant good day to everyone. With no further ado: The process of building a simply, plain vanilla cross compiler for arch-fmt-no_os is really probably overdone. To build, for example, a GCC cross compiler for an i586-elf target, the build process requires you to have a libc for the target, and then from there, the build process uses the features in your vanilla target's libc to decide how to configure libstdc++v3.
However, anyone building a vanilla cross compiler either doesn't yet *have* a standard lib for his kernel project as yet, or isn't yet interested in building an os-specific toolchain for arch-fmt-his_os as yet. Therefore the assumption that there would be a standard library, or libc, or even that the person even *wants* a libstdc++ with his vanilla build is incorrect. Normally, a hobbyist kernel-developer, or a person working on a kernel of any sort for that matter, would begin by building a vanilla target, which uses no libs whatsoever. Therefore the triplet lacks the 'os' part. That is: "I'm building a cross compiler which does not target any particular OS.". The vanilla target is used to compile the kernel itself. A kernel project usually provides its *own* stdlibs, in subdirectories of its tree, Therefore there is no need for GCC to require me to build libstdc++ for a vanilla build. Later on, the kernel developer would usually, after implementing syscalls, and now having actually written the system libraries for his kernel, compile a target for arch-fmt-my_os. In *this* build, s/he will have a libc which is either native, or a layer over his/her own native system API. Using this libc and the relevant headers, etc, s/he would now cross compile the arch-fmt-my_os target. NOW the developer is interested in having libstdc++ built along with the cross compiler since there is a need for the userspace libstdc++. What I'm trying to say therefore is that you folks are doing a great job, and I love your compiler, but could you please keep things simple where they should be? There's no *need* for a libstdc++ on a vanilla or 'bare metal' build. And the assumption that a libc, or any other system lib even exists for a bare metal target is flawed. The cross compiler should only depend on, or assume the existence of system libs when it is being built with a *FULL* triplet where a target *OS* is specified. Currently, kernel developers need to build newlib, and create stub blank functions for functions that *do not* exist in their kernels just so that the unnecessary libstdc++v3 will build without problems (REF: http://wiki.osdev.org/GCC_Cross-Compiler); yet neither newlib, nor any other library is needed for a vanilla target. A vanilla target should produce free-standing binaries. Please really consider this, since there is a whole community (http://osdev.org) whose lives would be significantly eased if you simplify the build process for a vanilla target. Also, it may be worth noting that the idea of assuming that everyone will use either libc, or else just use newlib is flawed. Especially for vanilla targets. So again, making a 'special case' for newlib is really not a very grace solution to the problem. --Please consider this seriously.
