> You could run ‘nix-build -A stdenv -K /path/to/nixpkgs’.  Upon glibc
> build failure, just get into the failed build tree:

Yep, it failed with the same error.

>  $ sudo chown -r $USER /tmp/nix-build-*glibc-2.13*
>  $ cd /tmp/nix-build-*glibc-2.13*
>  $ source env-vars
>  $ cd build
>  $ make

[...]

make[2]: Nothing to be done for `subdir_lib'.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/tmp/nix-build-46dkvs7arjnsb0073n603lr7c6r6wskl-glibc-2.13.drv-1/glibc-2.13/catgets'
building math/subdir_lib
smake  subdir=math -C math ..=../ subdir_lib
make[1]: *** [math/subdir_lib] Killed
make[1]: Leaving directory `/tmp/nix-build-46dkvs7arjnsb0073n603lr7c6r6wskl-glibc-2.13.drv-1/glibc-2.13'
make: *** [all] Error 2

Here is a snippet from 'env-vars':

export PATH="/nix/store/9nw1avchbg97czpvj9ivnxfyji42bi6w-bootstrap-gcc-wrapper/bin:/nix/store/91f8rlqhb9vgkghaf9p6bi7giadaawn3-bootstrap-tools/bin:/nix/store/91f8rlqhb9vgkghaf9p6bi7giadaawn3-bootstrap-tools/bin:/nix/store/r33gc5rbc2yaks3kwx6m18di31532rgs-binutils-2.21.1a/bin:/nix/store/91f8rlqhb9vgkghaf9p6bi7giadaawn3-bootstrap-tools/bin"

# /nix/store/9nw1avchbg97czpvj9ivnxfyji42bi6w-bootstrap-gcc-wrapper/bin/gcc --version
gcc (GCC) 4.5.0
Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

I've found some (probably related) links. [1,2]  The proposed solution is
to use a newer GCC.  How can I try 4.7.1?

Nikita

[1] http://superuser.com/questions/509294/linux-from-scratch-glibc-make-error
[2] http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=14281