The source file libroot_stubs.c contains empty stubs for all symbols exported by libroot.so, including definitions of all versioned symbols. From libroot_stubs.c, libroot.so can be built, which is a stubbed version of libroot.so (i.e. without any code). This stubbed library is used during stage 0 of the bootstrap process, in order to build the gcc-syslibs (libgcc, libsupc++ and libstdc++). The python script generate_stubs.py can be used to regenerate libroot_stubs.c from a built version of (the real) libroot.so. This may be necessary when new symbols have been added to libroot.so. The command for regenerating libroot_stubs.c is this: nm | generate_stubs.py >libroot.stubs.c There is a separate version of the stubs file for the legacy compiler (gcc2), which uses a different symbol mangling format and contains the symbols for libgcc, too.