Geoff Wing <mason@primenet.com.au> typed:
: My fault?
: ranlib?  Running with full path to tools ranlib works.
: BTW, this is union mount of empty obj dirs on src.

Was using UPDATE=yes on build.  Initial build died during usr.bin or
usr.sbin,  i.e. after libraries installed.  Reverting libs and retrying
after updating with the libbfd version bump - thanks to thorpej - fixed it.

Regards,
Geoff