Linux without the GNU toolchain 5108

You want a system that is able to replicate itself from source? Why? What's wrong with "cp"?

Anyway, if you want to compile the kernel, you need gcc (I don't really believe that tinycc can cope with all gcc's amazing excesses - you know that THIS is C for gcc: "41 = 5;").

And I don't see why you want to bother with gcc locally. Why can't you give the task to some remote machine?

Anyway, if you want to build gcc, you want a C compiler, and you can take your pick - say tinycc. But since you NEED gcc for the kernel, I don't see why you want to go without GNU tools!

It's ill-defined. You need gcc to compile the kernel and live, so you can't make do without the GNU C compiler.

Exactly that! Compiler, linker, and libc to link against. But it has to be the gcc compiler in order to build the kernel and feel safe. So why bother thinking?

If you wanted to build just the compiler from its own source, I'm sure any compiler will do. Compiling yourself must be the number one regression test in any compiler suite.

Note that your concept of "source" is also ill defined. Lots of the gcc "C source" is generated from a yacc specification. You need yacc to compile the yacc spec to C code. Ditto the lexer. And then you might need "make" to control the compile - andbin-sh to run extra things in the compile.

But if you start from C source, then you can make do with make, a linker, a compiler, and a shell. To compile the shell, you need libc, however. Or much of it.

Peter