5.14. Coreutils-5.2.1

The Coreutils package contains utilities for showing and setting the basic system characteristics.

Approximate build time: 0.9 SBU
Required disk space: 53.3 MB
Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Perl, and Sed

5.14.1. Installation of Coreutils

Prepare Coreutils for compilation:

DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION=199209 ./configure --prefix=/tools

This package has an issue when compiled against versions of Glibc later than 2.3.2. Some of the Coreutils utilities (such as head, tail, and sort) will reject their traditional syntax, a syntax that has been in use for approximately 30 years. This old syntax is so pervasive that compatibility should be preserved until the many places where it is used can be updated. Backwards compatibility is achieved by setting the DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION environment variable to “199209” in the above command. If you do not want Coreutils to be backwards compatible with the traditional syntax, then omit setting the DEFAULT_POSIX2_VERSION environment variable. It is important to remember that doing so will have consequences, including the need to patch the many packages that still use the old syntax. Therefore, it is recommended that the instructions be followed exactly as given above.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue: make RUN_EXPENSIVE_TESTS=yes check. The RUN_EXPENSIVE_TESTS=yes parameter tells the test suite to run several additional tests that are considered relatively expensive (in terms of CPU power and memory usage) on some platforms, but generally are not a problem on Linux.

Install the package:

make install

Details on this package are located in Section 6.15.2, “Contents of Coreutils.”