G N U   G E N E R A L   I N F O R M A T I O N

			     (Updated 7/12/94)

========
OVERVIEW
========

This is the root directory of a set of utilities which started with Amiga
ports of important GNU (GNU's Not Unix) tools, such as the GNU C compiler,
and then has gradually expanded to encompass other tools.

For information about what has changed since the previous release, see the
CHANGES topic later in this file.

One of the goals of this set of utilities is to have a completely self
hosting environment.  I.E. that everything within it be compilable by the
GNU C compiler or other provided compilers.  It should be possible for the
recipient of these utilities to make whatever changes or bug fixes they
want in any piece of code, and then rebuild and use that fixed version (and
hopefully send those changes back for integration into future releases).

==========
STACK SIZE
==========

			*** IMPORTANT ***

	Some of the GNU utilities, gcc in particular, require a
	very large stack.  You need to arrange that the CLI/Shell
	or whatever you run these programs from has a large stack
	set.  In a CLI you can set this with a command of the
	form "stack 100000" (100000 is what I use).  You can also
	put this command in your S:Shell-Startup file to get large
	stacks for all CLI/Shell startups, without having to 
	remember to manually set the stack each time.  Really huge
	compiles, like recompiling the compiler itself, may require
	even more stack space (like 300Kb or more).


=========
STRUCTURE
=========

Important subdirectories are:

	amigados	? (gcc/g++ uses this for something...)

	bin		Where the GNU executables go.

	etc		Equivalent to /etc on UNIX.

	guide		AmigaGuide versions of info files.

	include		Include files used by gcc.

	info		Info files.

	lib		Library tree, like /usr/lib on UNIX.

	man		Manual pages.

	manifests	Lists that subdivide this tree up into important
			subsets for individual distribution, such as all
			the files that comprise a binary distribution of
			the GNU C compiler.

	os-include	System specific include files.  These are
			Commodore proprietary and are distributed 
			under license from Commodore.

	os-lib		System specific library files.  These are
			derived from Commodore proprietary libraries
			and are distributed under license from Commodore.

	src		All the source code, including the original 
			FSF distributions, patches to the FSF distributions,
			and the fully patched AmigaDOS sources.

==============
GENERAL STATUS
==============

	Distribution	Prev	This	Latest
	Name		CD-ROM	CD-ROM	FSF	Status
	------------	------	------	------	-----------------

	a++		*	1.01	n/a	Added
	autoconf	*	1.11	1.11	Added
	bash		1.13.4	1.13.4	1.13.4	Port incomplete
	bc		1.02	1.02	1.02	No change
	binutils	1.8.x	1.8.x	2.3	No change
	bison		1.22	1.22	1.22	No change
	calc		*	*	2.02b	No port integrated yet
	cpio		2.3	2.3	2.3	No change
	cvs		*	*	1.3	No port integrated yet
	dc		0.2	0.2	0.2	No change
	dejagnu		*	*	1.1.1	No port integrated yet
	diffutils	2.6	2.6	2.6	No change
	doschk		1.1	1.1	1.1	No change
	ed		*	0.1	0.1	Added
	elvis		*	*	1.7	No port integrated yet
	emacs		18.59	18.59	19.22	No change
	f2c		930428	930428	930428	No change
	fileutils	3.9	3.9	3.9	No change
	find		3.8	3.8	3.8	No change
	finger		*	*	1.37	No port integrated yet
	flex		2.4.6	2.4.6	2.4.6	No change
	fontutils	*	*	0.6	No port integrated yet
	gas		1.38	1.38	2.2	No change
	gawk		2.15.4	2.15.5	2.15.5	Updated
	gcc		2.5.8	2.5.8	2.5.8	No change
	gdb		4.12	4.12	4.12	No change - Port incomplete
	gdbm		1.7.1	1.7.3	1.7.3	Updated
	ghostscript	2.6.1	2.6.1	2.6.1	No change
	ghostview	*	*	1.5	No port integrated yet
	glibc		*	*	1.06	No port integrated yet
	gmp		1.3.2	1.3.2	1.3.2	No change
	gnat		*	1.80	n/a	Added
	gnuchess	*	*	4.0.62	No port integrated yet
	gnugo		*	*	1.1	No port integrated yet
	grep		2.0	2.0	2.0	No change
	groff		1.09	1.09	1.09	No change
	gzip		1.2.4	1.2.4	1.2.4	No change
	indent		1.9.1	1.9.1	1.9.1	No change
	ispell		4.0	4.0	4.0	No change
	less		*	*	177	No port integrated yet
	libg++		2.5.3	2.5.3	2.5.3	No change
	m4		1.1	1.1	1.1	No change
	make		3.70	3.71	3.71	Updated
	mm		*	*	1.07	No port integrated yet
	mtools		*	*	2.0.7	No port integrated yet
	nethack		*	*	3.1.3	No port integrated yet
	oleo		*	*	1.3.1b	No port integrated yet
	patch		2.1	2.1	2.1	No change
	pdksh		4.5	4.9	n/a	Updated
	perl		4.036	4.036	4.036	No change (not working)
	rcs		5.6.0.1	5.6.0.1	5.6.0.1	No change
	readline	*	*	1.1	No port integrated yet
	recode		*	*	3.2.4	No port integrated yet
	regex		*	*	0.12	No port integrated yet
	sed		2.03	2.05	2.05	Updated
	shellutils	1.9.4	1.10	1.10	Updated
	tar		1.11.2	1.11.2	1.11.2	No change
	termcap		1.2	1.2	1.2	No change
	texinfo		3.1	3.1	3.1	No change
	textutils	1.9	1.9	1.9	No change
	time		*	*	1.6	No port integrated yet
	tput		*	*	1.0	No port integrated yet
	uucp		*	*	1.04	No port integrated yet
	uuencode	1.0	1.0	1.0	No change
	wdiff		*	*	0.04	No port integrated yet

==============
GNU C COMPILER
==============

All the versions of gcc look for local header files in LOCAL:include and
LOCAL:os-include, and look for local library files in LOCAL:lib and
LOCAL:os-lib.  This allows you to add local packages that will be found
automatically by gcc, in a location that is writable by you.  Simply
reassign LOCAL: to point to the correct location.

Gcc now automatically includes -lamiga in the command line to the linker,
so you can use AmigaDOS specific calls in your code without having to
remember to link with libamiga.a.

As of this date, all releases of gcc since 2.3.3 have had broken support
for the -resident option.  This is one reason why gcc 2.3.3 is still
included on the CD-ROM.  To demonstrate the problem, try to bootstrap using
"make bootstrap RESIDENT=-resident".

==========
GNU LINKER
==========

A new option "-f" or "-flavor" is used to inform the linker to look in
additional subdirectories for particular "flavors" of libraries, like
libraries compiled with -fresident, libraries compiled with -g, libraries
compiled with -p, etc.  All the flavor args are collected in a list,
sorted, and then used to create additional sudirectories at the end of the
standard library search paths.

For example, given the args

	"-L mystuff:lib -flavor libx -flavor libb -lmylib"

the linker will search for libmylib.a in "mystuff:lib/libb/libx/".

In particular, this is the mechanism that is now used to locate the base
relative libraries, which have moved from gcc:blib to gcc:lib/libb.
Eventually there will be other standard flavors of libraries, like -p
compiled and -g compiled libraries, in a subtree like:

	gcc:lib/libb/libc.a		-resident
	gcc:lib/libb/libg/libc.a	-resident -g
	gcc:lib/libb/libg/libp/libc.a	-resident -g -p
	gcc:lib/libp/libc.a		-p
	gcc:lib/libg/libp/libc.a	-g -p

	etc.

============
GNU DEBUGGER
============

GDB 4.12 has been ported to the extent that you can build an AmigaDOS
executable that knows how to load and examine executables from non-AmigaDOS
systems.  Much work remains.  See the gnu:src/diffs/gdb-4.12-README file.

=======
CHANGES
=======

This is a summary of things that have changed since the last release.

    *	It is now possible to configure and build most of the GNU
	tree using a single command, and to do so in a directory
	that is total separate from the GNU tree (commonly called
	the "build" directory.  I.E.

		makedir junk:build
		cd junk:build
		sh
		/gnu/src/amiga/configure amigados ; make

    *	Added a port of GNU ada (gnat) done by Pass Travis.  Thanks Pass!
	See gnu:src/amiga/gnat-1.80/README-amiga for details.  For examples
	of how to run the compiler, and test your installation, try the
	examples in the gnat-1.80/examples directory.

    *	GNU sed updated to version 2.05.

    *	GNU "ed" version 0.1 added.

    *	GNU autoconf 1.11 added.

    *	GNU gawk updated to version 2.15.5.

    *	GNU gdb updated with patches for reading AmigaDOS "hunk" format.

    *	GNU gdbm updated to version 1.7.3.

    *	GNU make updated to version 3.71.

    *	GNU shell utils updated to version 1.10 (and renamed).

    *	Pdksh updated from version 4.5 to version 4.9, the latest public
	release, and autoconf support added.

    *	Added "autoconf" support to most tools that didn't already have
	autoconf support, and rebuild the automatically generated configure
	scripts for those tools that did come with autoconf support, using
	the latest version of autoconf.

    *	Merged in some GNU ld bug fixes and other changes.

    *	Merged a patch in ls.c so that ls will handle international
	characters better.

    *	Version 1.01 of Armin Vogt's A++ library has been added to the GNU
	source tree.  It hasn't yet been integrated as part of the standard
	GNU C environment though.  The A++ library is a library written in
	C++ that consists of classes assigned to the task of encapsulating
	the Amiga system software, to given them a proper C++ class
	interface.  See the documentation and examples in the source
	directory "src/amiga/APlusPlus".

====
TODO
====

This is a list of things that still remain to be done for future releases,
and/or comments about future directions.

    *	Beta versions of gcc that use separate 68020/030/040 binaries
	and libraries are currently in testing.  They should be integrated
	in the next release.

    *	New versions of ixemul.library (40.X) are in beta test.  Once they
	are stable, they will be integrated into a future release.

    *	Look at adding AmigaDOS style version strings to all binaries.

    *	Look at redoing documentation files (such as this one) as AmigaGuide
	documents, or as texinfo files that can be used to generate both
	AmigaGuide and plain-text files.

    *	Integrate an "info-to-AmigaGuide" converter into the standard
	build and install process, in order to generate and install
	AmigaGuide versions of all info files.

    *	Ensure that the standard documentation browsing tools are present
	and work correctly (man, info, etc).

    *	Continue integrating selected tools now that the "GNU tree" has
	been opened up to non-GNU tools as well as GNU tools.  One fertile
	source of material may be the BSD-lite distributions.

    *	Finish the GNU emacs 18.XX port so that it can be compiled with the
	GNU C compiler.

    *	Port GNU emacs 19.XX.

    *	In cpio-2.3, the "mt" program is not getting built, possibly
	because "rmt" support is not provided by default.  Fix this.

    *	Provide documentation in both *.dvi and *.ps formats.