Bug 955701 – sys-devel/binutils-2.44: Please respect upstream defaults and keep colour off by default.

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: UNCONFIRMED ---

[Description Nick Bowler 2025-05-09 20:33:41 UTC]

After updating binutils I notice that objdump disassembly is full of
ANSI rainbow vomit.  Sadly, objdump does not respect NO_COLOR[1].

Upstream binutils-2.44 does not have this problem.  This happens because
the ebuild has deviated from upstream defaults and hardcodes the
--enable-colored-disassembly configure option.

Please respect upstream defaults and if you really must keep this in the
ebuild please at least make it controllable by a USE flag, or implement
support for NO_COLOR in objdump.

[1] https://no-color.org/

Portage 3.0.67 (python 3.12.9-final-0, default/linux/amd64/17.1, gcc-13, glibc-2.40-r8, 3.10.0-1160.11.1.el7.x86_64 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: Linux-3.10.0-1160.11.1.el7.x86_64-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-_i7-4790_CPU_@_3.60GHz-with-glibc2.40
KiB Mem:    16204156 total,    189108 free
KiB Swap:   32605180 total,  32588664 free
Timestamp of repository gentoo: Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:45:00 +0000
sh dash 0.5.12-r1
ld GNU ld (Gentoo 2.44 p1) 2.44.0
ccache version 4.11.2 [enabled]
app-misc/pax-utils:        1.3.8::gentoo
app-shells/bash:           5.2_p37::gentoo
dev-build/autoconf:        2.13-r8::gentoo, 2.69-r9::gentoo, 2.71-r7::gentoo, 2.72-r1::gentoo
dev-build/automake:        1.16.5-r2::gentoo, 1.17-r2::gentoo
dev-build/cmake:           3.31.6-r1::gentoo
dev-build/libtool:         2.5.4::gentoo
dev-build/make:            4.4.1-r100::gentoo
dev-build/meson:           1.7.1::gentoo
dev-java/java-config:      2.3.3-r1::gentoo
dev-lang/perl:             5.40.1::gentoo
dev-lang/python:           2.7.18_p16-r2::gentoo, 3.11.9-r1::gentoo, 3.12.9::gentoo, 3.13.2::gentoo
dev-lang/rust:             1.85.1::gentoo
dev-util/ccache:           4.11.2::gentoo
llvm-core/clang:           18.1.8-r6::gentoo, 19.1.7::gentoo, 20.1.1::gentoo
llvm-core/lld:             20.1.1::gentoo
llvm-core/llvm:            18.1.8-r6::gentoo, 19.1.7::gentoo, 20.1.1::gentoo
sys-apps/baselayout:       2.17::gentoo
sys-apps/openrc:           0.55.1::gentoo
sys-apps/sandbox:          2.46::gentoo
sys-devel/binutils:        2.43-r2::gentoo, 2.44::gentoo
sys-devel/binutils-config: 5.5.2::gentoo
sys-devel/gcc:             9.5.0::gentoo, 13.3.1_p20250301::gentoo, 14.2.1_p20250301::gentoo
sys-devel/gcc-config:      2.12.1::gentoo
sys-kernel/linux-headers:  6.14::gentoo (virtual/os-headers)
sys-libs/glibc:            2.40-r8::gentoo
Repositories:

gentoo
    location: /SCRATCH/gentoo/srv/repos/gentoo
    sync-type: webrsync
    sync-uri: rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage
    priority: -1000
    volatile: True
    sync-webrsync-verify-signature: true

gentoo-draconx
    location: /SCRATCH/gentoo/srv/repos/gentoo-draconx
    masters: gentoo
    volatile: True

gentoo-fixes
    location: /SCRATCH/gentoo/srv/repos/gentoo-fixes
    masters: gentoo
    volatile: True

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64"
ACCEPT_LICENSE="@FREE"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=haswell -pipe"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/SCRATCH/gentoo/etc /etc /usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt /var/bind"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/SCRATCH/gentoo/etc/env.d /etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/dconf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c"
CONFIG_SHELL="/SCRATCH/gentoo/bin/bash"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=haswell -pipe"
DISTDIR="/SCRATCH/gentoo/var/cache/distfiles"
EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--quiet-build --keep-going --autounmask=n --autounmask-write=n --dynamic-deps=n --unordered-display --verbose-conflicts --with-bdeps-auto=n"
ENV_UNSET="CARGO_HOME DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS DISPLAY GDK_PIXBUF_MODULE_FILE GOBIN GOPATH PERL5LIB PERL5OPT PERLPREFIX PERL_CORE PERL_MB_OPT PERL_MM_OPT XAUTHORITY XDG_CACHE_HOME XDG_CONFIG_HOME XDG_DATA_HOME XDG_RUNTIME_DIR XDG_STATE_HOME"
FCFLAGS="-O2 -pipe"
FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-docompress binpkg-dostrip binpkg-logs binpkg-multi-instance buildpkg-live ccache config-protect-if-modified distlocks ebuild-locks fixlafiles ipc-sandbox merge-sync merge-wait multilib-strict network-sandbox news parallel-fetch pid-sandbox pkgdir-index-trusted preserve-libs protect-owned qa-unresolved-soname-deps strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans unprivileged xattr"
FFLAGS="-O2 -pipe"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/gentoo-distfiles/"
INSTALL_MASK="/usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.d/51-pulseaudio-probe.conf /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/keystore/cacerts"
LANG="en_CA.UTF-8"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed"
LEX="flex"
MAKEOPTS="-j5"
PKGDIR="/SCRATCH/gentoo/var/cache/binpkgs"
PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/SCRATCH/gentoo/"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --omit-dir-times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --human-readable --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --exclude=/.git"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/SCRATCH/gentoo/var/tmp"
SHELL="/SCRATCH/gentoo/bin/zsh"
USE="X acl amd64 bzip2 cli crypt cups dri exif fbcon fontconfig fortran gdbm iconv icu ipv6 jpeg lcms libtirpc lzma multilib ncurses nls objc ogg opengl openmp pcre perl png prefix pulseaudio python readline seccomp split-usr ssl svg test-rust truetype unicode vorbis xattr xft xinerama xv zlib" ABI_X86="64" ADA_TARGET="gcc_14" APACHE2_MODULES="authn_core authz_core socache_shmcb unixd actions alias auth_basic authn_anon authn_dbm authn_file authz_dbm authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CALLIGRA_FEATURES="karbon sheets words" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" CPU_FLAGS_X86="aes avx avx2 f16c fma3 mmx mmxext pclmul popcnt rdrand sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock greis isync itrax navcom oceanserver oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf skytraq superstar2 tsip tripmate tnt ublox" GUILE_SINGLE_TARGET="3-0" GUILE_TARGETS="3-0" INPUT_DEVICES="libinput" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb text" LUA_SINGLE_TARGET="lua5-1" LUA_TARGETS="lua5-1" OFFICE_IMPLEMENTATION="libreoffice" PHP_TARGETS="php8-2" POSTGRES_TARGETS="postgres17" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_12" PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_12" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby32" VIDEO_CARDS="amdgpu fbdev intel nouveau radeon radeonsi vesa dummy" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tarpit sysrq proto logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account"
Unset:  ADDR2LINE, AR, ARFLAGS, AS, ASFLAGS, CC, CCLD, CPP, CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, CXX, CXXFILT, ELFEDIT, EXTRA_ECONF, F77FLAGS, FC, GCOV, GPROF, LC_ALL, LD, LFLAGS, LIBTOOL, LINGUAS, MAKE, MAKEFLAGS, NM, OBJCOPY, OBJDUMP, PORTAGE_BINHOST, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PYTHONPATH, RANLIB, READELF, RUSTFLAGS, SIZE, STRINGS, STRIP, YACC, YFLAGS

[Comment 1 Paul Zander 2025-05-09 20:42:28 UTC]

Nothing stops you from passing whatever you want via EXTRA_ECONF and just setting --disable-colored-disassembly or anything else you want.

[Comment 2 Sam James 2025-05-09 20:43:17 UTC]

The documentation at https://sourceware.org/binutils/docs/binutils/objdump.html doesn't promise that it'll be off or on, it says:
> Enables or disables the use of colored syntax highlighting in disassembly output. The default behaviour is determined via a configure time option. Note, not all architectures support colored syntax highlighting, and depending upon the terminal used, colored output may not actually be legible. 

.. so I don't consider us disrespecting that.

If you're bothered by it, then EXTRA_ECONF="--disable-colored-disassembly" in /etc/portage/env is an option.