About Cygnus Support
********************

   Cygnus Support, founded in 1989, provides commercial support for
free software.  *Why free software?* Free software is fast, powerful,
and more portable than its proprietary counterparts.  It evolves faster
because users who want to make improvements are free to do so.  Cygnus
tracks these improvements and integrates them into tested, stable
versions ready for commercial use, then backs this software with
comprehensive support.

   The problem with free software has always been that your company's
programmers and engineers had to spend time maintaining the tools as
well as using them, which tied up company resources. Cygnus frees up
those resources by supplying products and services which allow you to
use state-of-the-art tools without the problems of maintenance. You can
now choose to use free software and get the advantages of powerful and
prompt support, combining the best of both. We provide up-to-the minute
releases, for those who need the very latest version.

   Our team of experienced engineers include the leading architects for
G++, GDB, GAS, and BFD. We developed and use PRMS, the most
comprehensive bug-reporting and tracking software in the business.

   Cygnus makes sure that our customers' problems get solved the right
way. No grungy little programs, no klugey fixes that don't generalize,
no work-arounds that end up being features instead of temporary
situations. If you have a problem, you get in touch with the developers
of the software, not an intermediary. (For details on the variety of
support services available from Cygnus, see the section in this
introduction on support contracts.

   Because all our improvements are also free software, you can
distribute them widely within your organization, or to your customers,
without extra cost. No unwieldy licenses to manage, and no worries about
buying extra copies.

                                  Cygnus Support
     Support hotline: +1 415 903 1401          email: info@cygnus.com
     
     HEADQUARTERS                                                  EAST COAST
     1937 Landings Drive                                   One Kendall Square
     Mountain View, CA 94043 USA                      Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
     +1 415 903 1400                                          +1 617 494 1040
     +1 415 903 0122 fax                                  fax +1 617 494 1325



Cygnus Support Developer's Kit
******************************

   This Developer's Kit puts at your disposal, in a single coordinated
and tested release, some of the best software development tools
available.  The Kit is available for "native development" (where the
same kind of system can run both the tools and the code you develop with
them) and for "cross-development" (where one system, the "host", runs
the tools to develop software for another system, the "target").

   Cygnus Support has ported GNU tools to over sixty different
platforms (see the accompanying release notes for the most current
list).  As part of our service, we integrate all our tools to ensure
that they all work together.  Our developers use a regression testing
method that not only checks for problems with a single tool, but across
all the tools. We check for problems that a change in one may cause in
another. We don't ship until we know it works.




Free Software
*************

   If you find our Developer's Kit useful, please feel free to give or
sell copies of the software and documentation to anyone you like.

   In this release, we've assembled the most current ports of the
development tools, tested them, made sure they work well together, and
made them easy to install. The installation tape comes with binaries
already compiled for your system, and we've made them easy to
reconfigure and recompile from source.

   These tools are free software; they are part of the GNU project,
produced by the Free Software Foundation (FSF).  "GNU" is the name of
the FSF's evolving operating system (in speech, the `G' is sounded).
Cygnus Support collaborates with the FSF in developing these tools.
(For more information on the relationship between Cygnus Support and
the FSF, please see the release notes included in this distribution.)

   Cygnus Support exists to help our clients exploit their freedom in
using, adapting, or enhancing this software.  Cygnus products are "free
software", protected by the GNU General Public License ("GPL").  The
GPL gives you the freedom to copy or adapt any program it licenses--but
every person getting a copy also gets with it the freedom to modify
that copy (which means that they must get access to the source code),
and the freedom to distribute further copies.  Traditional software
companies use copyrights to limit your freedoms; the GPL is designed to
preserve your freedoms.

   Fundamentally, the General Public License is a license which grants
you these freedoms, and only imposes restrictions to ensure that no one
can take these freedoms away from anyone else.

   For full details, see the *LICENSE* section in this manual set, or
the file `COPYING'.


Manuals
*******

These manuals are included in a hardcopy, bound format in this Cygnus
Progressive Release. For convenience we have bound them in two volumes:

     Volume I                     Volume II
     .....................................................................
     Introduction		     The GNU C++ Iostream Library
     
     Installation Notes 	     User's Guide to the GNU C++ Library
     
     Release Notes		     The Cygnus C Support Library
     
     GNU C++ Renovation Project      The Cygnus C Math Library
     
     Reporting Problems	     	     The C Preprocessor
     
     GNU Online Documentation        Using as
     
     Using GNU CC		     Using ld
     
     Debugging with GDB	             The GNU Binary Utilities


     GNU General Public License      Comparing and Merging Files: diff, diff3,
                                     sdiff, cmp, and patch
     
     GNU Make: A Program for Directing Recompilation

Source for all documentation is also included.

   The manuals are designed for easy online browsing.  For online use,
the accompanying software distribution tape includes all the printed
manuals, and also the following documents:

`FLEX: A Fast Lexical Analyzer Generator'
     Generates lexical analyzers suitable for GNU `cc' and other
     compilers.

`Texinfo: The GNU Documentation Format'
     How you can use TeX to print these manuals, and how to write your
     own manuals in this style.

`Using and Porting GNU CC'
     Detailed information about what's needed to put `gcc'  on different
     platforms, or to modify `gcc'.  Also includes all the information
     from the printed manual `Using GNU CC'.

`Cygnus configure'
     Details on how to use the configuration program used in Cygnus
     releases.

`GNU Coding Standards'
     A complete discussion of the coding standards used by the GNU
     project.

`BYacc'
     A discussion of the "Berkeley Yacc" parser generator.

On the Sun-3 and Sun-4 (SunOS 4.1 or Solaris 2) platforms, the following
manual is also provided online:

`GNU gprof'
     Details on the GNU performance analyzer.

Finally, `man' pages are included for all the programs in the release.

   You have the freedom to copy the manuals, like the software they
cover; each manual's copyright statement includes the necessary
permissions.  The manuals themselves are also free software, and the
source for them is also available on the tape.

Conventions
-----------

   Our manuals use these conventions to help you distinguish commands,
filenames, and other program-specific objects from the descriptive text.

`Typewriter-text'
     Indicates text that is a literal example of a piece of a program,
     such as environmental variable names like `EDITOR'. It will also
     indicate keyboard characters you should type, or other literal
     bits of text from a program, such as filenames or examples.

key-name
     Indicates the conventional name for a special key on a keyboard,
     such as RET or DEL.

GENERIC-NAME
     Stands for another piece of text. For example, in the command
     description "To delete the file named FILENAME, type `rm
     FILENAME'." FILENAME stands for the file you want to delete, no
     matter what you've named it.



Your Support Contract
*********************

   This documentation set was provided as part of a support package
from Cygnus Support. GNU development tools provide a powerful,
integrated applications development environment. Cygnus provides the
support that enables you to optimize your use of these tools.  Cygnus
is one of the primary develpment centers for GNU tools.  Your Cygnus
support contract links you directly with the developers.

   With this documentation, Cygnus Support has provided the latest
fully-tested release of the GNU tools, preconfigured for your supported
system.

Updates to your GNU toolchain
-----------------------------

   Every quarter during the period of your support contract, Cygnus
provides an updated toolchain, complete with the latest enhancements
and improvements.  The updates also include bug fixes and updated
documentation. You can get these updated toolchains by requesting them.

   You will also receive the Cygnus Engineering newsletter, `Inside
Cygnus Engineering,' which will keep you informed about release dates,
improvements, new supported platforms, and new products. We also request
information about your needs via surveys in this newsletter.

Contacting Cygnus
-----------------

   You can reach Cygnus Support by email, phone, or fax.

   *E-mail*. Use `send-pr', part of the supplied toolchain, to submit a
problem report. *Note Reporting Trouble: Bugs. Questions can also be
sent to `info@cygnus.com'

   *Phone*. Cygnus can be reached at: (415) 903-1400. Our support
hotline number is: (415) 903-1401.

   *Fax*. Send faxes to Cygnus at: (415) 903-0122. Faxes are only
answered 8 am--5pm, Monday-Friday. Critical bug reports should be sent
with `send-pr'.

Future Needs
------------

   The availability of source code enables anyone to enhance the GNU
tools.  While Cygnus is doing the greatest amount of ongoing
development, many other users around the world are also contributing
enhancements and improvments.  Cygnus integration and regression
testing ensures that enhancements made elsewhere can work with Cygnus'
developments.

   As your needs evolve, so do the capabilities of the GNU development
tools, and the support services available from Cygnus Support.


