This repository exists as a temporary repository for containing copies of prebuilt binaries of GNU as (the assembler), copied from
It only contains binaries for linux-x86 host, which can target x86 and ARM (32b and 64b variants).
It will be used to minimize Android Common Kernel dependencies on GNU binutils for the “S” release, as part of: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/prebuilts/clang/host/linux-x86/+/master/BINUTILS_KERNEL_DEPRECATION.md (The creation of this repository is step 4).
If all goes well, then these binaries may never end up being used. Their existence is a hedge in the case of updates to kernel sources requiring the fallback to GNU as instead of Clang's integrated assembler.
As of Sept 29 2020, https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/changes.html for a v5.9-rc7 Linux kernel requires binutils version 2.23 or newer. These binaries are based off of 2.27.0.20170315.