First, let's make sure we're on the same page.

- These files are created during the `$(MAKE) run_profile_task` stage.
- They get removed during the `$(MAKE) clean` stage, along with the build directory.
- The build directory gets recreated during the `$(MAKE) build_all_use_profile` stage, without any .gcda files this time.

So you won't see these files after a successful build *if* you haven't taken measures to ensure they are saved during the build process. I save these files to a cpio file *before* `make clean` runs and restore them right afterwards.
I suggest you modify `Makefile.pre.in` to include similar commands to the ones I mention in issue #23607 to verify whether your system creates these files or not.

Now, for the info you required:

It's a system running Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit with gcc 4.8.4. It's a build of Python with the `-mx32` flag, along with all required libraries for the needs of a specific project. (I think that the `-mx32` flag is not important to our discussion here though.) It isn't a cross-compilation.