https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=104431
Bug ID: 104431 Summary: Provide better error message when GCC "multilib" is missing Product: gcc Version: 8.5.0 Status: UNCONFIRMED Severity: normal Priority: P3 Component: other Assignee: unassigned at gcc dot gnu.org Reporter: eyalroz1 at gmx dot com Target Milestone: --- I was recently trying to build GCC 8.5.0 on my Devuan Chimaera machine, which has GCC 9 and 10 installed. When configuring, I was told: /usr/bin/ld: cannot find Scrt1.o: No such file or directory /usr/bin/ld: cannot find crti.o: No such file or directory /usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/libgcc.a when searching for -lgcc /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgcc /usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/10/libgcc.a when searching for -lgcc /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgcc it is _quite_ difficult for the lay person to understand what the actual problem here. I have GCC 10, I have ligcc for GCC 10 - what's wrong with it? And what are Scrt1 and crti ? And why is configure checking for `.o` files anyway? Now, as explained in this StackOverflow answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/16016792/1593077 this is easily resolved by installing the "gcc-multilib" Debian package, which meant in practice installing: gcc-10-multilib lib32asan6 lib32atomic1 lib32gcc-10-dev lib32gomp1 lib32itm1 lib32quadmath0 lib32ubsan1 libc6-dev-i386 libc6-dev-x32 libc6-x32 libx32asan6 libx32atomic1 libx32gcc-10-dev libx32gcc-s1 libx32gomp1 libx32itm1 libx32quadmath0 libx32stdc++6 libx32ubsan1 I don't need to be told about all of these, but some kind of message saying "cross-platform build libraries missing" or "GCC multilib 32-bit libraries missing" or whatever. It doesn't have to be distribution-specific, but it _should_ tell me what I need to go look for.