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xPack GCC v11.4.0-2 released

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

Version 11.4.0-2 is a maintenance release; it fixes the linker path issue on GNU/Linux.

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@11.4.0-2.1 -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 11.4.0 from May 29, 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 12.2.0-2, 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​

  • [#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.

Enhancements​

  • none

Known problems​

  • none

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:

925ec71f50b7c7de93ac5da411c4682f66a2e1a1d4e0f0915215c4a6c7480c2f
xpack-gcc-11.4.0-2-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

efc31c2dc3187074ca8336efdc2a72d02b4b94b8f83551483207759df3221b45
xpack-gcc-11.4.0-2-darwin-x64.tar.gz

10c5691c14e3b91418b4914a8b5e28236ca2c9940f4f5409b879ce7d426673ed
xpack-gcc-11.4.0-2-linux-arm.tar.gz

76d05b9ac580b65f469c9af7ff2d0aad690e469ab808fd6ae6c7183c32bb6984
xpack-gcc-11.4.0-2-linux-arm64.tar.gz

986e55f5558f12d3e6584ff44c24f14c982aa259086c71ef35a0fed4d98d364b
xpack-gcc-11.4.0-2-linux-x64.tar.gz

7b05a3633b3603ac45352da4c63a14474770335837944ca7b676c653be8eb9a3
xpack-gcc-11.4.0-2-win32-x64.zip

Deprecation notices​

GNU/Linux minimum requirements​

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

32-bit support​

Support for 32-bit x86 GNU/Linux and x86 Windows was dropped in 2022.

Pre-deprecation notice for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux​

Due to the large user base of 32-bit Raspberry Pi systems, Support for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux (armv7l) will be preserved for a little while, but expect it to be dropped by 2025, so it is recommended to consider an upgrade to a RPi 4 or 5 with at least 4 GB (preferably 8 GB) of RAM.

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.