Ubuntu 15.10 Will Use The GCC 5 Compiler By Default

Written by Michael Larabel in Ubuntu on 6 May 2015 at 01:08 PM EDT. Add A Comment
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It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but Ubuntu 15.10 will be using the GCC 5 compiler by default.

Given that GCC 5 (technically GCC 5.1) was released in late April, it was too late for Ubuntu 15.04, but now it will have six months of maturing for Ubuntu 15.10. This upgrade doesn't come as a surprise given that it's been that way for GCC's major annual releases going back years. There's been no discussions at all about making LLVM/Clang the default compiler in Ubuntu Linux, though this alternative compiler continues to be offered in the Debian and Ubuntu archives.

Discussed during today's Ubuntu Online Summit was their roll-out for GCC 5. In particular, Ubuntu developers/packagers are at work on addressing build failures for code failing to build under the newer compiler. Due to GCC 5 defaulting to GNU11/C11 and other changes, some code-bases are failing to compile under the new GNU Compiler Collection. While Ubuntu packagers are working on fixing build failures, GCC 5 will not become the default immediately. Ubuntu doesn't plan to use GCC by default until after the GCC 5.2 release. Under the new GCC versioning scheme, GCC 5.2 will be the first GCC5 point release and that's expected to premiere in June or July.

Once GCC 5.2 is out is when the updated compiler stack should replace GCC 4.9 in the Ubuntu Wily archive. More details via today's GCC 5 session notes.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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