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xPack GNU RISC-V Embedded GCC v14.2.0-2 released

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

Version 14.2.0-2 is a maintenance release; it updates to the latest binutils 2.43.1 (to add support for the Zcmp extension) and the Debian multi-libs.

The xPack GNU RISC-V Embedded GCC is a standalone cross-platform binary distribution of GNU GCC for embedded RISC-V.

There are separate binaries for Windows (x64), macOS (x64 and 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 can be downloaded automatically with xpm or manually from GitHub Releases.

Prerequisites​

  • x64 Windows: Windows 7 with the Universal C Runtime (UCRT), Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows 11
  • x64 macOS: 10.13 or later
  • arm64 macOS: 11.6 or later
  • 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)

Install​

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

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/riscv-none-elf-gcc@14.2.0-2.1 -verbose

The full details of installing the xPack GNU RISC-V Embedded GCC on various platforms can be found in the Install Guide.

Compliance​

The xPack GNU RISC-V Embedded GCC uses the official sources, with no functional changes:

  • GCC 14.2.0
  • binutils 2.43.1
  • newlib 4.4.0
  • gdb 15.1
  • python 3.12.2

Supported libraries​

The default architecture/ABI pair is rv32imac/ilp32.

The other supported libraries are:

$ riscv-none-elf-gcc -print-multi-lib
.;
rv32e/ilp32e;@march=rv32e@mabi=ilp32e
rv32ea/ilp32e;@march=rv32ea@mabi=ilp32e
rv32em/ilp32e;@march=rv32em@mabi=ilp32e
rv32eac/ilp32e;@march=rv32eac@mabi=ilp32e
rv32emac/ilp32e;@march=rv32emac@mabi=ilp32e
rv32i/ilp32;@march=rv32i@mabi=ilp32
rv32ia/ilp32;@march=rv32ia@mabi=ilp32
rv32im/ilp32;@march=rv32im@mabi=ilp32
rv32if_zicsr/ilp32f;@march=rv32if_zicsr@mabi=ilp32f
rv32ifd_zicsr/ilp32d;@march=rv32ifd_zicsr@mabi=ilp32d
rv32iaf_zicsr/ilp32f;@march=rv32iaf_zicsr@mabi=ilp32f
rv32iafd_zicsr/ilp32d;@march=rv32iafd_zicsr@mabi=ilp32d
rv32imf_zicsr/ilp32f;@march=rv32imf_zicsr@mabi=ilp32f
rv32imfd_zicsr/ilp32d;@march=rv32imfd_zicsr@mabi=ilp32d
rv32iac/ilp32;@march=rv32iac@mabi=ilp32
rv32imafc_zicsr/ilp32f;@march=rv32imafc_zicsr@mabi=ilp32f
rv32imafdc_zicsr/ilp32d;@march=rv32imafdc_zicsr@mabi=ilp32d
rv64i/lp64;@march=rv64i@mabi=lp64
rv64ia/lp64;@march=rv64ia@mabi=lp64
rv64im/lp64;@march=rv64im@mabi=lp64
rv64if_zicsr/lp64f;@march=rv64if_zicsr@mabi=lp64f
rv64ifd_zicsr/lp64d;@march=rv64ifd_zicsr@mabi=lp64d
rv64iaf_zicsr/lp64f;@march=rv64iaf_zicsr@mabi=lp64f
rv64iafd_zicsr/lp64d;@march=rv64iafd_zicsr@mabi=lp64d
rv64imf_zicsr/lp64f;@march=rv64imf_zicsr@mabi=lp64f
rv64iac/lp64;@march=rv64iac@mabi=lp64
rv64imac/lp64;@march=rv64imac@mabi=lp64
rv64imafc_zicsr/lp64f;@march=rv64imafc_zicsr@mabi=lp64f
rv64imafdc_zicsr/lp64d;@march=rv64imafdc_zicsr@mabi=lp64d
note

This list is inspired by the Debian riscv64-unknown-elf-gcc supported multi-libs.

Changes​

Compared to the upstream GNU release, there are no functional changes.

Bug fixes​

  • none

Enhancements​

  • none

Known problems​

  • none

Documentation​

The original GNU Arm Embedded GCC documentation is available from the GCC online documentation web site.

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:

7a0e1ab5be053761cab354feade92e803e47eea841585a1df127820dcf33bea4
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-2-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

f6930ecadda7a5b37c8557534e2d7a44da5601129fafa17e4e36020f778c9e1a
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-2-darwin-x64.tar.gz

16a797c25e3bc1aeb056472b357731cae38378fe52bde75b11abf23eecfd14b9
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-2-linux-arm.tar.gz

e1348fdd679131510f610a9aa42ec4e5d6bceb40115df4b57a44cb7186a7caa7
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-2-linux-arm64.tar.gz

0ab93937aab882c3a69f63eff4fe8fc6e360e4a23776004fa116ad692e699d23
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-2-linux-x64.tar.gz

30f44bbea58954c1679528a0ebba6cc117671f78412267f85dcee4cdc029c477
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-2-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.

Analytics​

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