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xPack GNU RISC-V Embedded GCC v14.2.0-3 released

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

Version 14.2.0-3 is a maintenance release; it adds two new multilibs, rv32ec/ilp32e & rv32imc/ilp32.

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@14.2.0-3.1 -verbose

Comprehensive instructions for installing xPack GNU RISC-V Embedded GCC on different 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
rv32ec/ilp32e;@march=rv32ec@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
rv32imc/ilp32;@march=rv32imc@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​

  • [#38] based on users requests, two more libraries were added
    • rv32ec/ilp32e
    • rv32imc/ilp32

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:

e76e86b8c500f8e92b3b4ff7b0444cfbf3b218515f322929e0744ec3b9ed80a8
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-3-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

8a6e699f12876152d6386e777675d94529ccc21a57224a69d973f676949a1687
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-3-darwin-x64.tar.gz

c8587c7a45b141e1e949084f2c05a51e01f7d4494c0e647c623ee857dbc1a89d
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-3-linux-arm.tar.gz

0c0551986e30174af55f245e1c3a86c45233fc793bf36586567f266ada6fdd98
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-3-linux-arm64.tar.gz

f574415b63f12b09bdd3475223ab492a465d23810646c90c13a4c3b676c83503
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-3-linux-x64.tar.gz

9bb15efdeca256532c4a83ce6462c7dc1f9cfebe1f1f43d581b2ad7d077209b6
xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-14.2.0-3-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.