as86 ? strange error rebuilding kernel.

[Benjamin F Zhou <bfzhou@netscape.net>]

Hi,

I ran 'make mrproper', followed by 'make config', 'make dep', then 'make boot'.
in the end, I got the following messages:

make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-2.2.12/arch/i386/boot'
gcc -D__KERNEL__ -I/usr/src/linux-2.2.12/include -E -traditional -DSVGA_MODE=NORMAL_VGA bootsect.S -o bootsect.s
as86 -0 -a -o bootsect.o bootsect.s
make[1]: as86: Command not found
make[1]: *** [bootsect.o] Error 127
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-2.2.12/arch/i386/boot'
make: *** [boot] Error 2

What is this as86 ? Does it mean I missed sth at installation?

Thanks a lot for any hint.

Ben