Problems using GAS on Interactive 386/ix 2.2 (with patches)

[Mark Jeghers]

I may just need to be educated in how to properly use the GNU products, or I
may have a problem in the software.

I got all the latest versions of gas, gcc, g++, libg++, gdb, etc.  My
understanding at this point is that I probably need to build gas first
(please correct me if this is not true) so that gcc can use it instead of
the standard assembler.  I assume that even if this is not required, it
might be preferable.

THEREFORE, I have started my gnu-building efforts with gas.  I have applied 
the ISC patches recently posted in comp.unix.sysv386, and it all pretty much
compiled.

Next, I compiled a C program up to assembly language and tried assembling it
with gas.  Here is the problem: gas makes an object file alright, but the 
standard linker does not accept it, saying that the magic number is wrong.
The 'file' command says it's a PDP/11 (or earlier!) object file!  I suppose
this strange effect has to do with the patches (since they appear to implement
COFF format), but I am not totally clear on what I should do next.  Do I 
need to use a different linker?  Or is gas broken?  Are there other pieces
(in gcc, for example) that need to be built before I can use gas?  Is there
any reasonable documentation such as "Bert and Ernie build GNU tools for the
first time"?

Thanks for all responses in advance.