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xPack GCC v12.3.0-1 released

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

Version 12.3.0-1 is a new release; it follows the official GNU GCC release.

The xPack GCC is a standalone cross-platform binary distribution of GCC.

There are separate binaries for Windows (x64), macOS (x64, arm64) and GNU/Linux (x64, arm64 and arm).

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 easiest way to install this specific version, is by using xpm:

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/gcc@12.3.0-1.1 -verbose

Comprehensive instructions for installing xPack GCC on different platforms can be found in the Install Guide.

Compliance​

The xPack GCC generally follows the official GCC releases.

The current version is based on:

  • GCC version 12.3.0 from May 8, 2023;
  • binutils version 2.41 from July 30, 2023.

Supported languages​

The supported languages are:

  • C
  • C++
  • Obj-C
  • Obj-C++
  • Fortran

Note: Obj-C/C++ support is minimalistic.

Starting with August 2022, support for 32-bit multilib was added on x86 GNU/Linux; it can be enabled via the -m32 compile option.

Changes​

Compared to the upstream, there are no functional changes.

Bug fixes​

  • none

Enhancements​

  • none

Known problems​

  • the tests failed on RedHat arm 32-bit
  • the prerequisites for OpenSUSE tumbleweed arm64 failed to install
  • [#8] due to an error in the binutils build script, in certain conditions, on GNU/Linux, the linker complained about a dependency to libpthread.so and/or libm.so; fixed in 2024-02-24.

Documentation​

To save space and bandwidth, 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.

For 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:

bf8ec47e8c739be62d7ed900f018b3a2c1dbabac402c4fa4dd82a14ba08183bb
xpack-gcc-12.3.0-1-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

45d89ef57bf9dd40d87a779ed36edd5a7606cf2e62522df2695cb6582107e962
xpack-gcc-12.3.0-1-darwin-x64.tar.gz

684e50fd57d3cc85d0c1fdc8e2bbf1dd067389c735a6059b717c6c812c51e90b
xpack-gcc-12.3.0-1-linux-arm.tar.gz

34c38bd82e3e4edffe0d1f89768af0964167a92d167d0bffb0464d64da66f94d
xpack-gcc-12.3.0-1-linux-arm64.tar.gz

fdb682ab7a53fcdcef7cdb55e45a90acfbb65373f976898e4f2af2f57f58b0c0
xpack-gcc-12.3.0-1-linux-x64.tar.gz

b55250f49ef7652714d61d202e4b9f963594d555ed55c0bbeae18faf3a44d6b2
xpack-gcc-12.3.0-1-win32-x64.zip

Deprecation notices​

32-bit support​

Support for 32-bit x86 GNU/Linux and x86 Windows was dropped in 2022. Support for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux (armv7l) will be preserved for a while, due to the large user base of 32-bit Raspberry Pi systems.

GNU/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.