| | 4 | |
| | 5 | == gold == |
| | 6 | |
| | 7 | [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_%28linker%29 gold] is a linker for `ELF` files present in `binutils`. `gold` was developed by Ian Lance Taylor and a small team at Google. The motivation for writing `gold` was to make a linker that is faster than the GNU linker `bfd`, especially for large applications coded in `C++`. |
| | 8 | |
| | 9 | `gold` is faster and uses less RAM memory than `bfd`. It is used to link WebKit and its dependencies by many WebKit hackers in a daily basis. |
| | 10 | |
| | 11 | However, have into account that `gold` is a new linker and that means that you may find into some problems using it every now and then. Specific bugs for `gold` have already been reported and fixed in WebKit before[1]. If you get into troubles with the linker when using `gold`, don't forget to check this list of possible [https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKitGTK/StartHacking#Compilationissues compilation issues] and solutions. |
| | 12 | |
| | 13 | * For using it, install it in your distro of choice: |
| | 14 | * debian / ubuntu: |
| | 15 | {{{ |
| | 16 | #!sh |
| | 17 | $ sudo apt-get install binutils-gold |
| | 18 | }}} |
| | 19 | - Fedora: |
| | 20 | {{{ |
| | 21 | #!sh |
| | 22 | $ sudo yum install binutils-gold |
| | 23 | }}} |
| | 24 | |
| | 25 | You may want to check that the default `ld` binary in the system is the one provided by `gold`: |
| | 26 | {{{ |
| | 27 | #!sh |
| | 28 | $ ls -l /usr/bin/ld |
| | 29 | lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Sep 25 2012 /usr/bin/ld -> ld.gold |
| | 30 | }}} |
