+The file etc/configure.texi contains more information.
+
+You can also specify the --enable-shared option when you run
+configure. This will build the BFD and opcodes libraries as shared
+libraries. This will only work on certain systems, and currently will
+only work when compiling with gcc. You can use arguments with the
+--enable-shared option to indicate that only certain libraries should
+be built shared; for example, --enable-shared=bfd. The only
+possibilities in a binutils release are bfd and opcodes.
+
+The binutils will be linked against the shared libraries. The build
+step will attempt to place the correct library in the runtime search
+path for the binaries. However, in some cases, after you install the
+binaries, you may have to set an environment variable, normally
+LD_LIBRARY_PATH, so that the system can find the installed libbfd
+shared library.
+
+If you specify --enable-commonbfdlib as well as --enable-shared, then
+a single shared library will be built containing the bfd, opcodes, and
+libiberty libraries. It will be installed as libbfd. This option
+will make the binutils programs as small as possible.
+
+If you don't have ar
+====================
+
+If your system does not already have an ar program, the normal
+binutils build process will not work. In this case, run configure as
+usual. Before running make, run this script:
+
+#!/bin/sh
+MAKE=${MAKE-make}
+${MAKE} $* AR=true all-libiberty
+${MAKE} $* AR=true all-bfd
+cd binutils
+${MAKE} $* ADDL_DEPS='$(BULIBS)' ADDL_LIBS='$(BULIBS) ../bfd/*.o `cat ../libiberty/required-list ../libiberty/needed-list | sed -e "s,\([^ ][^ ]*\),../libiberty/\1,g"`' ar
+
+This script will build an ar program in binutils/ar. Move binutils/ar
+into a directory on your PATH. After doing this, you can run make as
+usual to build the complete binutils distribution. You do not need
+the ranlib program in order to build the distribution.