Re: Confused about build proceedure srcdir vs objdir

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes:

> Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
>
>> I'm not sure what an `objdir' refers to or what under gcc-3.0.2 is
>> considered `srcdir'.  Or how one knows when they are outside the
>> `tree'.  I don't see the familiar `src' subdirectory.
>
> 'scrdir' and its subdirectories contain the contents of the tarball,
> 'objdir' is the root of the directory hierarchy in which the build
> takes place.
>
> At the beginning, you have to create objdir manually, and invoke the
> configure script in srcdir.

Very thick skull here.  Can we ditch the jargon?
Sorry that this is sounding like gobs of questions that must seem akin
to shoe tying or toilet chores to you...  I'm not getting what it is
that this `objdir' really does.  Trying to think what details might
lurk behind "build takes place", but drawing blanks.  There must be
basic mechanical things happening here and I'm blinded by the terms or
something.

`objdir' is no doubt an attempt to give a meaningfull clue.  Why `obj'
object.. but what does it mean or do.

I've tried to make this concrete below, and laid out what I think is
being suggested.

ls /exp/gcc-3.0.2.tar.gz
cd /exp/
tar xzvf gcc-3.0.2.tar.gz

=====================================================================
      /exp/gcc-3.0.2/  <== configure, make, make install happen here 
INSTALL/ config/ contrib/ gcc/  i586-pc-linux-gnu/ include/ lib*/ zlib/
=======================================================================

srcdir = gcc-3.0.2 
mkdir build <= `objdir'

                            /exp/
  what happens here => build/     gcc-3.0.2/                     

What happens inside build (in general). What subdirectories might be
under it?  Why is it necessary? 

Do I give special options to ./configure or `make'
to cause things to happen in /exp/build?

OUTLINE of commands:
cd /exp
mkdir build <== any subdirectories required?
tar xzvf gcc-3.0.2.tar.gz
cd gcc-3.0.2 
./configure [...]<= what goes here if anything
                    as regards /exp/build/?

make [...] <== any thing special here regarding /exp/build

I started this project just to have a gcc installed that would work
with swish++.  I understood I needed recent gcc but not 2.96.

I hoped a basic no frills build would be similar to other tools I've
built.  And in fact it seems to have worked.  My first attempt was
with gcc-3.0.1  Which errored out at `make install'.  I had not done
anything special regarding `objdir', so suspected that was my trouble.

Meantime 3.0.2 was released
I've downloaded and tried gcc-3.0.2 now.  Again, with no
special `objdir' preparations.  The ./configure make and make install
went off with no errors.  I did see a number of warnings.  I captured
all the output if I need to show some of it here.

Before changing path and going whole hog, I wondered if I should
retrench or expect problems because of my build process?  Should I
back off and redo the build?