memtest86+ can not link: binutils issue?

[Nate Eldredge]

On Fri, 31 Oct 2008, Andriy Gapon wrote:

> on 30/10/2008 20:46 Peter Jeremy said the following:
>> On 2008-Oct-30 18:08:35 +0200, Andriy Gapon <avg at icyb.net.ua> wrote:
>>> ld --warn-constructors --warn-common -static -T memtest_shared.lds \
>>>        -o memtest_shared head.o reloc.o main.o test.o init.o lib.o
>>> patn.o screen_buffer.o config.o linuxbios.o memsize.o pci.o controller.o
>>> random.o extra.o spd.o error.o dmi.o && \
>>>        ld -shared -Bsymbolic -T memtest_shared.lds -o memtest_shared
>>> head.o reloc.o main.o test.o init.o lib.o patn.o screen_buffer.o
>>> config.o linuxbios.o memsize.o pci.o controller.o random.o extra.o spd.o
>>> error.o dmi.o
>>> head.o(.text+0x7): In function `startup_32':
>>> : undefined reference to `_GLOBAL_OFFSET_TABLE_'
>>> Segmentation fault (core dumped)
>>> gmake: *** [memtest_shared] Error 139
>>
>> I can't help here.  _GLOBAL_OFFSET_TABLE_ is related to the binutils
>> PIC support and it appears that the linker doesn't like the code (in
>> head.S) is explicitly referencing it.
>>
>>> Not only linking fails, but ld even crashes.
>>
>> I agree this shouldn't happen.
>>
>>> Can anybody suggest anything about this problem?
>>
>> It looks like stand-alone PIC code on FreeBSD needs some different
>> incantations to Linux.  My understanding is that several of the
>> i386 bootstraps are relocatable so you might like to peruse the
>> code in /usr/src/sys/boot/i386 for ideas.
>
> I wonder if this is something about out port of binutils or is it an
> issue in older version of binutils.
> I'll try to look at the boot code, thank you for the hint.

FreeBSD's version of binutils is quite old.  I've definitely found bugs in 
it which are fixed in GNU's current version.  So you might try building 
the official GNU binutils and see if that works any better.  I don't know 
if it will fix your error but maybe it at least won't crash.

ld crashing is definitely a bug, and it would be nice if you could file a 
PR, including the object files.  If the GNU version doesn't crash that 
would be useful information for the PR also, as it might encourage Them to 
consider importing a newer version.

-- 

Nate Eldredge
neldredge at math.ucsd.edu