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

[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?

-- 
Cheers,
Guinevere Larsen
It/she