I'm trying to build full cross compiled toolchain and boost is almost ok, except of some details in static libs. The problem is that it uses patterns like $(command-string) -print-prog-name=ar (and ranlib as well) for getting the ar and ranlib for the toolset. But due to some bug in i686-w64-mingw32 and a whole bunch of similar instruments (on debian, ubuntu, etc) the XXX-gcc -print-prog-name=ar returns simply "ar", without tool prefix. Same about ranlib. And they seem not being apt to fix it: http://groups.google.com/group/linux.debian.bugs.dist/browse_thread/thread/8... I saw an old bug ticket about this problem in old boost archives: https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/3373 It's marked as fixed. I added some strings to my project-config.jam like: using gcc : : i686-w64-mingw32-gcc : <rc>i686-w64-mingw32-windres <archiver>i686-w64-mingw32-ar <ranlib>i686-w64-mingw32-ranlib But it evidently had no effect, by some reason: in output I still see strings like "/usr/bin/ar", "usr/bin/ranlib" and the librarian error ("could not read symbols: Archive has no index; run ranlib to add one") is still there when trying to use the libraries. I found the place in gcc.jam tool script where ar-tool name is defined: # - The archive builder. local archiver = [ common.get-invocation-command gcc : [ NORMALIZE_PATH [ MATCH "(.*)[$(nl)]+" : [ SHELL "$(command-string) -print-prog-name=ar" ] ] ] : [ feature.get-values <archiver> : $(options) ] : $(bin) : search-path ] ; toolset.flags gcc.archive .AR $(condition) : $(archiver[1]) ; if $(.debug-configuration) { ECHO notice: using gcc archiver :: $(condition) :: $(archiver[1]) ; } ranlib is similar, windres is kind of case of some variants. I'm not that smart in boost build scripts but it looks like it tries to get the name from -print-prog-name (that is buggy). Am I correct? Maybe I'm just setting parameters in some wrong way? I would like to get some hints how I could make it take my options from project-config.jam and take the -print-prog-name by default. To get the resulting tools strings like i686-w64-mingw32-ar, etc, be it a parameters setting or patch for tools jam file, whatever that solves the problem. Sincerely, Yana A. Kireyonok