Anyway, taking your advice as I understand it, I have tried adding a
"--target=i686-pc-linux-gnu" option when I run newlib configure on my
newlib is an embedded library. As such, there's a limit to which
targets it supports - it won't build on just anything. If you want to
build newlib for something specific, specify that as --host (for
natives) or --target (for crosses). As a special exception, to
prevent naive users from building newlib when they probably don't want
it, you have to jump through a few hoops to enable newlib (as a
target) when building for linux (as a host):
../src/configure --host=i686-pc-linux --with-newlib
If you specify only --target, the top-level configure thinks you're
cross-compiling, and disables newlib. If you naively configure for
linux (the top-level configure is shared among many projects), it
assumes you don't want newlib unless you explicitly ask for it.
Jeff: any reason why you can't cross-compile to a linux-newlib target?
That seems like a reasonable thing to want to do.