gcc updates

[George N. White III]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2008, don fisher wrote:

> When are the versions of gcc components included in the devel repository 
> added to the standard distribution. The current version of gfortran (4.1.2) 
> is quite broken. I tried to upgrade from the devel repository, but that 
> failed due to missing dependencies. I think that once the gcc was updated, 
> almost everything else that links to the library was included by yum.

"quite broken" is vague.  RedHat does backport fixes -- did you 
report the problem to BugZilla?

Unless your boss says you can only use stuff packaged for Fedora you
have a number of options:

1. you can install a newer version from OpenPkg.org (they list 4.2, 4.3, 
and 4.4 versions, with 4.2.3 as "core" and 4.3.0 as "evaluation").  I have 
been using gcc-g++ 4.2.3 in F8.

2. you can install a commercial compiler (Intel and/or Sun)

3. you can build a new compiler from sources.  It is generally not that 
hard to build a new minor version of gcc et al using your current 
compiler.  Major version changes are not as simple, as they require 
upgrades to libraries and other tools (binutils).  See: 
<http://gcc.gnu.org/install/prerequisites.html> (Last modified 2008-04-04) 
for current details.

> Is there a path to request such an upgrade?

The release notes provide a link:

<http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugsAndFeatureRequests>

-- 
George N. White III  <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>