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xPack GNU AArch64 Embedded GCC v12.3.1-2.1 released

· 5 min read
Liviu Ionescu (ilg)
Liviu Ionescu (ilg)

Version 12.3.1-2.1 is a maintenance release; it fixes the GNU/Linux GDB issues with loading ELF files.

The xPack GNU AArch64 Embedded GCC is a standalone cross-platform binary distribution of Arm GNU Toolchain.

There are separate binaries for Windows (Intel 64-bit), macOS (Intel 64-bit, Apple Silicon 64-bit) and GNU/Linux (Intel 64-bit, Arm 32/64-bit).

Raspberry Pi

The main targets for the GNU/Linux Arm binaries are the Raspberry Pi class devices (armv7l and aarch64; armv6 is not supported).

Download​

The binary files are available from GitHub Releases.

Prerequisites​

  • x64 GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • arm64/arm GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • x64 Windows: Windows 7 with the Universal C Runtime (UCRT), Windows 8, Windows 10
  • x64 macOS: 10.13 or later
  • arm64 macOS: 11.6 or later

Install​

The full details of installing the xPack GNU AArch64 Embedded GCC on various platforms are presented in the Install Guide.

Compliance​

The xPack GNU AArch64 Embedded GCC generally follows the official Arm GNU Toolchain releases.

The current version is based on:

  • Arm GNU Toolchain release 12.3.Rel1 from 28 Jul, 2023 and uses the same sources. It includes:
    • GCC 12.3.1
    • binutils 2.40
    • newlib 4.3.0
    • GDB 13.2

Supported libraries​

The supported libraries are:

$ aarch64-none-elf-gcc -print-multi-lib
.;
ilp32;@mabi=ilp32

Changes​

Compared to the Arm version, there should be no functional changes.

XML parsing in GDB​

Some advanced GDB servers, like the one provided with SEGGER J-Link, are capable of passing an XML with the target capabilities to the GDB client. For unknown reasons, the Arm toolchain distribution came without XML parsing support. The xPack distribution brings back support for XML parsing and full integration with the SEGGER J-Link GDB server.

Python​

Support for Python scripting was added to GDB. This distribution provides a separate binary, aarch64-none-elf-gdb-py3 with support for Python 3.11.1.

The Python 3 run-time is included, so GDB does not need any version of Python to be installed, and is insensitive to the presence of other versions.

Text User Interface (TUI)​

Support for TUI was added to GDB. The ncurses library was added to the distribution.

note

TUI is not available on Windows

No Guile​

Due to the difficulties of building standalone Guile libraries on all platforms, support for Guile scripting in GDB is currently not available.

Bug fixes​

  • [#2] due to a an issue in the build scripts, on GNU/Linux, the aarch64-none-elf-gdb was built without ELF support; fixed

Enhancements​

  • none

Known problems​

  • none

Documentation​

The original GNU GCC documentation is available online.

Build​

The binaries for all supported platforms (Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux) were built using the xPack Build Box (XBB), a set of build environments based on slightly older distributions, that should be compatible with most recent systems.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver reachedFor the prerequisites and more details on the build procedure, please see the Maintainer Info page.

CI tests​

Before publishing, a set of simple tests were performed on an exhaustive set of platforms. The results are available from:

Tests​

The binaries were tested on a variety of platforms, but mainly to check the integrity of the build, not the compiler functionality.

Checksums​

The SHA-256 hashes for the files are:

3bdae469f1479cf5535900aaf05c25b71f55cb17a0bbbea0eed41fc5e0371b31
xpack-aarch64-none-elf-gcc-12.3.1-2.1-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

4764aff79bdde32f44e91f3ecb3527ba1fb040669c513a0e6a29a990be7c3e41
xpack-aarch64-none-elf-gcc-12.3.1-2.1-darwin-x64.tar.gz

49c58c8c0ad0a44a0fc4c56136d56813922ce6f88eecaedb743b143a79082c5c
xpack-aarch64-none-elf-gcc-12.3.1-2.1-linux-arm.tar.gz

e3ae04e8489e38edacd7d3ff062747559016143fc476dc4e328e7db5c65f071e
xpack-aarch64-none-elf-gcc-12.3.1-2.1-linux-arm64.tar.gz

6063a0fd5b4bd1445bf0db1521839e2bb43daa2d3b974a2d9a8b8a76a8b9bcf3
xpack-aarch64-none-elf-gcc-12.3.1-2.1-linux-x64.tar.gz

41f87244a8c14a88d4926f20fee7e1087ba3ac7e128870a873e8bfa9e820ce92
xpack-aarch64-none-elf-gcc-12.3.1-2.1-win32-x64.zip

Deprecation notices​

32-bit support​

Support for 32-bit Intel Linux and Intel Windows was dropped in 2022. Support for 32-bit Arm Linux (armv7l) will be preserved for a while, due to the large user base of 32-bit Raspberry Pi systems.

Linux minimum requirements​

Support for RedHat 7 was dropped in 2022 and the minimum requirement was raised to GLIBC 2.27, available starting with Ubuntu 18, Debian 10 and RedHat 8.

Pre-deprecation notice for Ubuntu 18.04​

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver reached the end of the standard five-year maintenance window for Long-Term Support (LTS) release on 31 May 2023.

As a courtesy, the xPack GNU/Linux releases will continue to be based on Ubuntu 18.04 for another year.

From 2025 onwards, the GNU/Linux binaries will be built on Debian 10, (GLIBC 2.28), and are also expected to run on RedHat 8.

Users are urged to update their build and test infrastructure to ensure a smooth transition to the next xPack releases.

Download analytics​

Credit to Shields IO for the badges and to Somsubhra/github-release-stats for the individual file counters.