How to install latest stable release of GCC in Linux Mint?

Question

I want to install the latest version of GCC (GNU compiler collection) in Linux Mint 17.3. Currently g++ --version returns 4.8.4, whereas the latest stable release is 5.3.

Answer 1

Your Linux Mint comes pre-installed with a GCC package. So first I would recommend you to check if the package is already present in your system by typing the following command in terminal.

apt-cache search gcc

In case you're not having any such package then use the following command in terminal firstly you've add the following repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test

then use the next command:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install g++-4.7 c++-4.7

There is always basic thing we should learn; take it as prerequisite before linux.. Learn googling... try to do more hard search ...

Answer 2

download the latest version of gcc

wget http://www.netgull.com/gcc/releases/gcc-5.3.0/gcc-5.3.0.tar.bz2

use command: tar -xjf to unzip the file

Enter the directory that you unzipped just now, say in $HOME/Downloads/gcc-5.3.0, then type command:

./configure --disable-checking --enable-languages=c,c++,objc 
--disable-multilib --with-system-zlib prefix=/usr/bin/gcc-5.3

Dependency installation:build GCC requires GMP4.2+, MPFR 2.4.0+, and MPC 0.8.0+ and build essential

sudo apt-get install libgmp-dev libmpfr-dev libmpc-dev libc6-dev
sudo apt-get install build-essential

install a C++ compiler

sudo apt-get install g++

Next type:

make 
sudo make install

Edit if you still get errors message like " zlib.h not found!" you can do the below to fix it:

apt-get install zlib1g-dev

Answer 3

I am not quiet sure what should be the lastest, because there are always some latest comes out. But you can install any of them in this way.

Take gcc-8 as example:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc-8 g++-8
gcc-8 --version

if you want to select gcc-8/g++-8 with higher priority(20 in this case), you also need to

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-8 20 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-8

Answer 4

Truth be told I'm simply too lazy to move off 17.3 - it works for me. That being said, I still needed a newer gcc. To compile it repeatedly for different targets I have a bash script (see below) that I modify and run (I'm writing my own toy OS, hence I have to use a specially generated gcc).

Change the directories in the script below to match the directories you have. I keep the compiled version in my own directory so I can easily switch between my compiled version and the system's version. I suggest you do the same. You need to download binutils-2.23.2 as well as the gcc version you are interested in (I'm using 7.1.0 below). Put them into a ~/contrib directory along with the script below.

You might also want to change the line "--enabled-languages=c" to "--enabled-languages=c,c++,objc" - my project only needs C. Another change would be the value of PLATFORM. I use "i686-elf" but that won't work for you (I changed it below to something that will work for 32-bit platform). You can try "x86_64-linux-gnu" for a 64-bit platform.

For the curious - the reason I build it like this is because the gcc build process used to have a bug that prevented rebuilding in the source directory. I do not know if this bug still exists (I last encountered it in 4.8.0), but the only workaround was to explicitly build in a separate directory if you ever wanted to rebuild.

[EDIT: Perform the installation of the dependencies suggested above by GAD3R]

#!/bin/bash

function die() {
   echo $1
   exit 127
}


export PREFIX=/home/lelanthran/opt/cross
export TARGET=i686-linux-gnu
export PATH="$PREFIX/bin:$PATH"

pushd $PWD &> /dev/null
mkdir -p build-binutils
cd build-binutils
../binutils-2.23.2/configure \
   --target=$TARGET \
   --prefix="$PREFIX" \
   --with-sysroot \
   --disable-nls \
   --disable-werror || die "binutils/config error"
make           || die "binutils/make error"
make install   || die "binutils/make install error"

popd &> /dev/null

pushd $PWD &> /dev/null
mkdir -p build-gcc-7.1.0
cd build-gcc-7.1.0
../gcc-7.1.0/configure \
   --target=$TARGET \
   --prefix="$PREFIX" \
   --disable-nls \
   --enable-languages=c \
   --without-headers || die "gcc/config error"
make all-gcc                  || die "gcc/make all-gcc error"
make all-target-libgcc        || die "gcc/make all-target-libgcc error"
make install-gcc              || die "gcc/make install-gcc error"
make install-target-libgcc    || die "gcc/make install-target-libgcc error"