Re: [PATCH] gdb/README: Document GNU Make requirement

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2026 16:03:15 -0300
> Cc: gdb-patches@sourceware.org
> From: Guinevere Larsen <guinevere@redhat.com>
> 
> On 3/5/26 3:56 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >> From: Guinevere Larsen <guinevere@redhat.com>
> >> Cc: Guinevere Larsen <guinevere@redhat.com>
> >> Date: Thu,  5 Mar 2026 15:29:30 -0300
> >>
> >> User la_mettrie on IRC mentioned that they were having difficulties
> >> building GDB, and after some debugging, we figured out that they weren't
> >> using GNU Make. This is in the final documentation, but considering that
> >> it is not an obvious place to look, and the README mentions other build
> >> requirements, so this seems like a pretty obvious oversight.
> >> ---
> >>   gdb/README | 4 ++--
> >>   1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> >>
> >> diff --git a/gdb/README b/gdb/README
> >> index 492b0891668..09c88bcd19c 100644
> >> --- a/gdb/README
> >> +++ b/gdb/README
> >> @@ -86,8 +86,8 @@ configure the build tree.)
> >>   C++17 compiler for your system, you may be able to download and install
> >>   the GNU CC compiler.  It is available via anonymous FTP from the
> >>   directory `ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gcc'.  GDB also requires an ISO
> >> -C standard library.  The GDB remote server, GDBserver, builds with some
> >> -non-ISO standard libraries - e.g. for Windows CE.
> >> +C standard library and GNU Make.  The GDB remote server, GDBserver,
> >> +builds with some non-ISO standard libraries - e.g. for Windows CE.
> > Thanks, but shouldn't this be much closer to the beginning of the
> > file, like where the build commands are first shown?  Mentioning that
> > here, so close to the end of the installation overview, sounds too
> > late.  People might overlook it.
> >
> That's a good point. I only put it here because it's where the other 
> build requirements were located, but I guess the entire paragraph should 
> be moved up. I will do that for v2, but while I'm at it, should we 
> really be teaching the user how to find a c++17 compiler? I think we 
> should remove the instructions on downloading GCC from the ftp 
> directory, and shorten the entire paragraph a bit, what do you think?

Yes, I think this part of README needs a serious restructuring.