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Does anyone know where I can get a good linker - for windows - that is compatible with a.out object files?
Help appreciated

Hi fbudek,
You can use DJGPP : http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/

Thanks, Mezo
Now it can recognise them as a.out but it comes out in a different error this time:
main.o:main.c:(.text+0x94): undefined reference to '___main'
Once again, help appreciated!

I counter the previous suggestion, and point you to MinGW

DJGPP is a vastly out of date port of the GNU toolchain to DOS/Win16. MinGW is nicely updated.

Thanks, powersgang.
I already started by trying it with MinGW but it didnt seem to support a.out

Hi,

I guess one way would be to look at cross-compiling binutils on cygwin/mingw? Could you give a higher-level overview of what you are trying to achieve and why you need to be tied to a.out? It may be that with a it more detail there's an alternative solution to the problem.

Cheers,
Adam

I am going to try compiling everything under Linux (through VirtualPC) and see if that works.
If not, then I will start to look into a.out alternatives.
Thanks for the great response overall so far, though

To find the question behind the question: why are you using such an outdated format?

I am making this as an extremely minimal OS which I am building up from part of a tutorial,
which used a.out (nasm -f aout -o start.o start.asm)
So I'm not entirely sure whether everything will work together if I change the object format for start.o

I recommend try out the tutorial from this site, which adopt decent tool-chain.

The canon solution for this error in general is the GCC Cross-Compiler. In your case Searching should have been sufficient.