How can I understand these dreadful errors when building gcc-4.8.2?

Question

I am trying to install the gcc-4.8.2 compiler on a remote Debian 7 system, to which I have no root privileges, but only a ssh access. I figured out that the simplest way would be to compile the compiler from source.

I am following this short installation manual from the GCC webpage.

Basically I did the most simple installation, which is summarized at the bottom of the page:

tar xzf gcc-4.8.2.tar.gz
cd gcc-4.8.2
./contrib/download_prerequisites
cd ..
mkdir objdir
cd objdir
$PWD/../gcc-4.8.2/configure --prefix=$HOME/gcc-4.8.2 --enable-languages=c++
make

with the small exception that I did not run the ./contrib/download_prerequisites script on the remote machine because of firewall restrictions. Instead I ran it on my local machine, then compressed the entire folder back into gcc-4.8.2.tar.gz and scp'd it to the remote machine. There I re-created the symbolic links to the prerequisite libraries (gmp,...) and ran make. After several seconds I receive incredible errors:

In file included from ./tm.h:19:0,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:24:
./options.h:4078:2: error: #error too many masks for ix86_isa_flags
In file included from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/tree.h:26:0,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:25:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/statistics.h:25:2: error: #error GATHER_STATISTICS must be defined
In file included from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/system.h:268:0,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:22:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/hwint.h:16:39: error: division by zero in #if
In file included from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/tree.h:29:0,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:25:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/real.h:103:9: error: #error "REAL_WIDTH > 6 not supported"
In file included from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c-family/c-common.h:24:0,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-tree.h:23,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:26:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/../libcpp/include/cpplib.h:265:3: error: #error "Cannot find a least-32-bit signed integer type"
In file included from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:22:0:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/system.h:500:34: error: declaration of C function ‘const char* strsignal(int)’ conflicts with
In file included from /usr/include/c++/4.7/cstring:44:0,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/system.h:205,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:22:
/usr/include/string.h:566:14: error: previous declaration ‘char* strsignal(int)’ here
In file included from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/system.h:645:0,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:22:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/../include/libiberty.h:110:36: error: new declaration ‘char* basename(const char*)’
In file included from /usr/include/c++/4.7/cstring:44:0,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/system.h:205,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:22:
/usr/include/string.h:603:28: error: ambiguates old declaration ‘const char* basename(const char*)’
In file included from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/tree.h:27:0,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:25:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/vec.h: In static member function ‘static void va_heap::reserve(vec<T, va_heap, vl_embed>*&, unsigned int, bool)’:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/vec.h:295:7: error: ‘GATHER_STATISTICS’ was not declared in this scope
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/vec.h:303:7: error: ‘GATHER_STATISTICS’ was not declared in this scope
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/vec.h: In static member function ‘static void va_heap::release(vec<T, va_heap, vl_embed>*&)’:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/vec.h:317:7: error: ‘GATHER_STATISTICS’ was not declared in this scope
In file included from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/tree.h:29:0,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:25:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/real.h: At global scope:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/real.h:51:21: error: ‘SIZEOF_LONG’ was not declared in this scope
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/real.h:51:21: error: ‘SIZEOF_LONG’ was not declared in this scope
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/real.h:76:31: error: ‘SIZEOF_LONG’ was not declared in this scope
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/real.h:76:31: error: ‘SIZEOF_LONG’ was not declared in this scope
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/real.h:76:31: error: ‘SIZEOF_LONG’ was not declared in this scope
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/real.h:76:31: error: ‘SIZEOF_LONG’ was not declared in this scope
In file included from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c-family/c-common.h:24:0,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-tree.h:23,
                 from ../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/c/c-lang.c:26:
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/../libcpp/include/cpplib.h:267:35: error: expected initializer before ‘cppchar_t’
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/../libcpp/include/cpplib.h:268:9: error: ‘CPPCHAR_SIGNED_T’ does not name a type
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/../libcpp/include/cpplib.h:777:8: error: ‘cppchar_t’ does not name a type
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/../libcpp/include/cpplib.h:788:8: error: ‘cppchar_t’ does not name a type
../../gcc-4.8.2/gcc/../libcpp/include/cpplib.h:966:8: error: ‘cppchar_t’ does not name a type
make[3]: *** [c/c-lang.o] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/mdrozdik/gccbuild/gcc'
make[2]: *** [all-stage1-gcc] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/mdrozdik/gccbuild'
make[1]: *** [stage1-bubble] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/mdrozdik/gccbuild'
make: *** [all] Error 2

I am compiling with gcc 4.7.2-5 on Debian.

On the local machine there is Ubuntu 13.10 with gcc 4.7.3 and the build seems fine so far (still running).

Please, what could be the cause of these errors?

EDIT:

I checked the /home/mdrozdik/gccbuild/libcpp/config.log file. It is very longm but in two places there are these errors:

configure:3086: gcc -V >&5
gcc: error: unrecognized command line option '-V'
gcc: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.
configure:3097: $? = 4
configure:3086: gcc -qversion >&5
gcc: error: unrecognized command line option '-qversion'
gcc: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.
configure:3097: $? = 4

But the log continues for several pages nevertheless.

Answer 1

I had a similar problem (gcc 4.8.3) and this solved it: g++ 4.7.1 compilation error : conflicting types for ‘strsignal’

The solution was to unset a bunch of C compiler flags (CPATH, etc.)

https://stackoverflow.com/users/1224886/tsbertalan reported this worked for him (and it's what I used):

unset LIBRARY_PATH CPATH C_INCLUDE_PATH PKG_CONFIG_PATH CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH INCLUDE