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xPack GCC v12.4.0-1 released

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

Version 12.4.0-1 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).

caution

Recent macOS SDK (Xcode/CLT 16) introduced an incompatibility in the standard C header files and compilation ends with errors like:

.../include-fixed/stdio.h:80:14: error: expected ';' before 'extern'

The error is also encountered when running tests with GitHub Actions, since the macos runners were already upgraded to CLT 16.

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@12.4.0-1.1 -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 12.4.0 from June 20, 2024;
  • binutils version 2.42 from Jan 29, 2024.

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​

  • none

Enhancements​

  • none

Known problems​

Please see the separate tests results page.

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:

17c8ae83b3dca4133761f4ba422254ff329721e958b5bd2f5835a7f5197eb062
xpack-gcc-12.4.0-1-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

f194b0fc72c7d6563694707794e350e73f807635c8bdb05168924a56126d871c
xpack-gcc-12.4.0-1-darwin-x64.tar.gz

7b7daea2ec318c50e5bc464e412ef692dd33574b401a862d53689994652e48ba
xpack-gcc-12.4.0-1-linux-arm.tar.gz

ce069a42a2b52f5548f6ffaaa7d216d998ea7a4e6f97ab079719d29e790531bd
xpack-gcc-12.4.0-1-linux-arm64.tar.gz

4dcb6b82d5c00e6aa4f9c72c8457e657cfdf19fd753c33f261aa5e91d8d73aa9
xpack-gcc-12.4.0-1-linux-x64.tar.gz

9dcadb924816706b92d737e7f934c75ae6cc3fb33d6080211b556b3479aacbec
xpack-gcc-12.4.0-1-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.