OS-Development — Toolchain Setup

This script fetches the latest GCC and Binutils from the GNU FTP, builds them from source, and installs NASM, QEMU, GDB, and Make alongside them. When it's done, you have everything you need to write, assemble, link, and emulate an x86 OS.

What It Installs

Tool	Purpose
i386-elf-gcc	Freestanding C/C++ cross-compiler
i386-elf-ld	Cross-linker
nasm	x86 assembler
qemu-system-i386	Emulator to run your OS
gdb	Debugger
make	Build system

All binaries go to /usr/local. Source files build in ~/cross.

Requirements

• Ubuntu or Debian-based Linux
• sudo access
• Internet connection (downloads from ftp.gnu.org)

Usage

chmod +x setup.sh
./setup.sh

The script will:

1. Auto-detect the latest GCC and Binutils versions
2. Show you the config and ask for confirmation
3. Install build dependencies via apt
4. Download, build, and install Binutils, then GCC
5. Verify all tools are working
6. Offer to clean up the build workspace

GCC takes a while to compile. That's expected — go outside.

Reinstall / Upgrade

Re-running the script on a machine that already has the toolchain will detect the installed version and offer to:

• Reinstall (same version, reuses cached sources)
• Upgrade (newer version available, downloads fresh)

Verify Manually

After install, run:

i386-elf-gcc --version
i386-elf-ld --version
nasm --version
qemu-system-i386 --version

Cleanup

The script asks at the end whether to delete ~/cross. You can always do it manually:

rm -rf ~/cross

The installed binaries in /usr/local are unaffected.