Supplemental Linux® From Scratch (System V Edition) - Version #7053

Chapter 5. Programming

MIPSel Binutils-2.46 & GCC-16.1.0

Introduction to MIPSel

MIPSel is the little-endian (32-bit) variant of MIPS, used by early systems, mainly in embedded environments. Video game consoles of that time often used the PowerPC, MIPS 64, or MIPS 32 architectures. The toolchain that will be built with the following instructions will aim to target the latter.

The instructions below will build a simple cross compiler for MIPSel using Binutils and GCC. Both will be installed in this page. The target is mipsel-linux-gnu, which is shorter than most other target triplets.

Note

This may take a while to build. Feel free to do something else while this is building.

Installation of MIPSel-Binutils

Install MIPSel-Binutils by running the following commands: 

mkdir build-mipsel-binutils &&
cd    build-mipsel-binutils &&

../configure --prefix=/usr                              \
             --target=mipsel-linux-gnu                  \
             --infodir=/usr/share/info/mipsel-linux-gnu \
             --disable-nls                              \
             --disable-werror                           \
             --with-gold=no &&

make

Now, as the root user: 

make   DESTDIR=$PWD/DESTDIR install          &&
rm -v  DESTDIR/usr/lib/bfd-plugins/libdep.so &&
cp -Rv DESTDIR/usr/* /usr                    &&
rm -rf DESTDIR

Binutils Command Explanations

--disable-nls: This option disables NLS support, disabling output diagnostics in languages other than American English. Omit --disable-nls and invoke --enable-nls to enable NLS support.

--disable-werror: This option makes it so warnings won't be considered errors.

--with-gold=no: This option disables building gold, which is now considered deathware by many. The tarball used for the installation includes gold due to versioning issues, so this option helps counteract that.

--target=*: This option builds files for the architecture passed to it.

rm -v DESTDIR/usr/lib/bfd-plugins/libdep.so: This command removes a library that conflicts with the original library provided by the original compilation of Binutils.

Installation of MIPSel-GCC

Install MIPSel-GCC by running the following commands: 

mkdir build-mipsel-gcc &&
cd    build-mipsel-gcc &&

../configure --prefix=/usr             \
             --target=mipsel-linux-gnu \
             --disable-shared          \
             --disable-multilib        \
             --disable-threads         \
             --enable-languages=c,c++ &&

make inhibit_libc=true all-gcc

Now, as the root user: 

make install-gcc &&
ln -sfv mipsel-linux-gnu-gcc /usr/bin/mipsel-linux-gnu-cc

GCC Command Explanations

--disable-shared: This option disables building shared libraries.

--disable-multilib: This option ensures that files are created specifically for MIPSel.

--disable-threads: This option disables thread support due to build errors in GCC. Threading support is also unnecessary for this compiler.

--enable-languages=c,c++: This command builds support for C and C++. Refer to https://linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/general/gcc.html to find what other languages are supported.

Contents

There are no binaries specific to MIPSel besides the format the toolchain is targeting, and thus each binary is prefixed with the architecture triplet, such as mipsel-linux-gnu-gcc. For in-depth descriptions, read both https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/development/chapter08/binutils.html#contents-binutils and https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/development/chapter08/gcc.html#contents-gcc.