[ale] Resurrecting old cross-GCC or its configuration

[Mills, John M.]

ALE -

I have an old (c.1994) set of GNU cross-tools which support an embedded MIPS
processor and its BSPs, but they only run in old DOS shells c/o an old
Cygnus build. In theory I have all the sources including the target
definition. I would like to rebuild the tools and am having problems
configuring for either Linux or Cygwin.

If I try to build the old (c. gcc-2.6.1) compiler, configuration fails to
recognize my hosts (Cygwin or Linux). If I try to configure gcc-3.3.5 for
the old target, I fail to build '/tmp/build/gcc/.../xgcc', but haven't been
able to see from the log where it should have been built.

I am configuring GCC as follows:

$ cd <build_dir>
$ <src_dir>/configure --target=mips-<mfg>-ecoff <blah, blah ..>
--with-gnu-as \
 --with-gnu-ld --with-newlib --verbose --with-system-zlib
--prefix=/usr/local \
 --enable-languages=c,c++ 

I installed the old package's headers in $prefix/$target/include but that
didn't change the error message.

1st Question: How do today's GCCs autodetect and configure for Linux (or
Cygwin 8-), to help me build the old compiler in a current environment?
(This is worth doing as a confirmation tool.)

2nd Question: Besides the headers and CPU selection, what do I need to
provide so GCC-3.3.5 can be built for a new cross-target (assuming I have a
usable definition for 2.6.1)?

Thanks for any leads.

 - J. Mills