"Config.guess failed to determine the host type" when trying build binutils-2.7 with Cygwin

Question

I'm trying to build binutils-2.7 and gcc with Cygwin while following https://wiki.osdev.org/GCC_Cross-Compiler. Everytime I run:

../binutils-2.7/configure --target=i386-elf --prefix="/home/jacki" --with-sysroot --disable-nls --disable-werror

I get this error:

Config.guess failed to determine the host type.  You need to specify one.

I do not no much about building gcc or binutils. I'm just trying to start developing my os.

Answer 1

The target=i386-elf is for Linux 32 bit and similar.

Cygwin is a Windows program enviroment, so it uses the different PE format
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_executable_file_formats

You can NOT use the Cygwin compiler to build Linux programs (probably not what you are aiming).
For that you will need a dedicated cross-compiler