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+This is a BETA release of a completely rewritten binutils distribution.
+The linker (ld) has been moved into a separate directory,
+which should be ../ld.  Linker-specific notes are in ../ld/README.
+
+These programs have been tested on various architectures.
+Most recently tested are sun3 and sun4s running sunos4,
+as well as Sony News running newsos3.
+However, since this is a beta release taken directly from an
+evolving source tree, there might be some problems.  In particular,
+the programs have not been ported to as many machines as the
+old binutils.  There are also features of the old versions
+that are missing on the new programs.  We would appreciate
+patches to make things run on other machines; especially welcome
+are fixes for what used to work on the old programs!
+
+Unpacking and Installation -- quick overview
+==========================
+
+In this release, the binary utilities, the linker, the generic GNU include
+files, the BFD ("binary file description") library, and getopt all have
+directories of their own underneath the binutils-2.0 directory.
+The idea is that a variety of GNU tools can
+share a common copy of these things.  Configuration scripts and
+makefiles exist to cruise up and down this directory tree and
+automatically build all the pieces in the right order.
+
+When you unpack the binutils-2.0.tar.Z file, you'll get a directory called
+something like `binutils-2.0', which contains:
+
+	DOC.configure  README         config/        configure*     ld/
+	Makefile       bfd/           config.status* configure.in   libiberty/
+	Makefile.in    binutils/      config.sub     include/       texinfo/
+
+To build binutils, you can just do:
+
+	cd binutils-2.0
+	./configure HOSTTYPE		(e.g. sun4, decstation)
+	make
+	make install # copies the programs files into /usr/local/bin by default.
+
+This will configure and build all the libraries as well as binutils
+and the linker.
+
+The binutils can be used in a cross-development environment.
+The file DOC.configure contains more information.
+
+Porting
+=======
+Binutils-2.0 supports many different architectures, but there
+are many more not supported, including some that were supported
+by earlier versions.  We are hoping for volunteers to
+improve this situation.
+
+The major effort in porting binutils to a new host and/or target
+architecture involves the BFD library.  There is some documentation
+in ../bfd/doc.  The file ../gdb/doc/gdbint.texinfo (distributed
+with gdb-3.2) may also be of help.
+
+If your system uses some variant of old-style a.out-format,
+you can start with a copy of bfd/newsos3.c, and edit it to fit.
+(You may also need to tweak bfd/aout-target.h.)
+Alternatively, you could use the host-aout.c target.  This is a
+special kludge that only works for native (non-cross) configurations.
+
+Reporting bugs
+==============
+If you can't track down a bug and send suggestions/patches
+for fixes, you should probably *not* be using this release.
+I cannot work on finding bugs at this stage (except for
+Cygnus-supported configurations).  But if you have suggestions
+or patches, send them to bothner@cygnus.com, for now.
+(After the official release, the correct address will
+be bug-gnu-utils@ai.mit.edu.)