Description

This is a release of GNU Toolchain 11.2-2022.02 for the Arm architecture. The release includes bare-metal and linux toolchains for various hosts, as described in the Host support section.

Features

• This release is based on GCC 11.2.

Host support

Changes since Arm release GCC 10.3-2021.07 and 10.3-2021.10

• Updated GCC to version 11.2.
• Updated Binutils to version 2.37.
• Updated Glibc to version 2.34.
• Updated GDB to version 11.

Sources

The sources for this release are provided in the source tar ball, gcc-arm-src-snapshot-11.2-2022.02.tar.xz, and includes the following items:

Known dependencies

• GDB's Python support requires Python 3.6 or libpython 3.6 installed on Linux hosts.
• GDB's Python support requires Python DLL dependencies for Windows host.
• Toolchains dedicated for Windows host require mingw-w64 library, a complete runtime environment for GCC.

  • The following executables in the Windows hosted toolchains:

     - aarch64-none-linux-gnu-dwp.exe

     - aarch64-none-linux-gnu-ld.gold.exe

     - arm-none-linux-gnueabihf-dwp.exe

     - arm-none-linux-gnueabihf-ld.gold.exe

    have additional dependencies on the following dlls:

     - libwinpthread-1.dll

     - libgcc_s_sjlj-1.dll

     - libstdc++-6.dll

     - libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll

    You can obtain the required dlls from the MinGW-W64 GCC-8.1.0 packages fromSourceForge:

    - i686-posix-sjlj

    - i686-posix-dwarf

The GNU Toolchains

The package names of the released GNU toolchain binaries have the following naming convention:

gcc-arm-<Release Version>-<Host>-<Target Triple>.tar.xz

For Windows, the binaries are provided in zip files and with installers.

For Linux, the binaries are provided as tarball files.

For Mac OS X, the binaries are provided as tarball files and pkg files.

Released files

Installation instructions

Extract XZ compressed release archive using TAR archiving utility:

   $ tar -xJf <toolchain binary> -C <destination directory>

Example for Linux(x86_64) hosted for AArch64 Linux target

   $ tar -xJf gcc-arm-11.2-2022.02-x86_64-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.xz -C /path/to/destination/directory

Compute and check MD5 checksum of XZ compressed release archives using md5sum utility:

   $ md5sum --check gcc-arm-11.2-2022.02-x86_64-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.xz.asc 

   gcc-arm-11.2-2022.02-x86_64-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.xz: OK

The prebuilt binary bundles can be un-tarred and executed in place.  Unpack the Linux cross toolchain:

   $ mkdir install-lnx
   $ tar x -C install-lnx -f <filename>.tar.xz
   $ PATH=`pwd`/install-lnx/<filename>/bin:$PATH 

How to build the toolchain from sources

You can build Arm GNU Toolchain from sources using Linaro ABE (Advanced Build Environment) and provided ABE manifest files.

Below example shows how to build gcc-arm-aarch64-none-elf toolchain from sources using Linaro ABE build system.

Instructions

ABE has a dependency on git-new-workdir and needs this tool to be installed in /usr/local/bin directory:

        $ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/git/git/master/contrib/workdir/git-new-workdir

        $ sudo mv git-new-workdir /usr/local/bin

        $ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/git-new-workdir 

Clone ABE from the URL below and checkout the stablebranch (see Getting ABE):

   $ git clone https://git.linaro.org/toolchain/abe.git

Create the build directory and change to it. Any name for the directory will work:

   $ mkdir build && cd build

Configure ABE (from the build directory):

   $ ../abe/configure

Download the toolchain manifest file, from https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/open-source-software/developer-tools/gnu-toolchain/downloads, into the build folder, for the required toolchain, for example, gcc-arm-aarch64-none-elf-abe-manifest.txt:

   $  wget https://developer.arm.com/-/media/Files/downloads/gnu/11.2-2022.02/manifest/gcc-arm-aarch64-none-elf-abe-manifest.txt

Build toolchain (from the build directory):

   $ ../abe/abe.sh --manifest gcc-arm-aarch64-none-elf-abe-manifest.txt --build all

The built toolchain will be installed and available for use in the builds/destdir/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/ directory.

Known issues

• The macOS toolchains provided in the tar.xz format contain binaries that are not signed and notarized. To use signed and notarized binaries, use the macOS toolchains provided in the pkg format.

• In the Windows and Linux hosted toolchains, GDB is provided with Python support. In the macOS hosted toolchains, GDB is provided without Python support.

• If you install multiple Windows toolchains using the provided installer (.exe file), then only the last installed toolchain is visible in the Windows Add/Remove Programs menu. The other installed Windows toolchains can still be used or uninstalled by invoking the uninstaller from their respective install directories.

• When you decompress the windows packages, the decompression requests permission to overwrite certain files. This is because the files have similar names with different case, which are treated as identical names on a Windows host. You can choose to overwrite the files with identical names.

• Doing IPA on CMSE generates a linker error: The linker will error out when resulting object file contains a symbol for the clone function with the __acle_se prefix that has a non-local binding. Issue occurs when compiling binaries for M-profile Secure Extensions where the compiler may decide to clone a function with the cmse_nonsecure_entry attribute. Although cloning nonsecure entry functions is legal, as long as the clone is only used inside the secure application, the clone function itself should not be seen as a secure entry point and so it should not have the __acle_se prefix. A possible workaround for this is to add a 'noclone' attribute to functions with the 'cmse_nonsecure_entry'. This will prevent GCC from cloning such functions.

• GCC can hang or crash if the input source code uses MVE Intrinsics polymorphic variants in a nested form. The depth of nesting that triggers this issue might vary depending on the host machine. This behaviour is observed when nesting 7 times or more on a high-end workstation. On less powerful machines, this behaviour might be observed with fewer levels of nesting. This issue is reported in https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=91937

Ask questions

For any questions, please use the Arm Communities forums.

Report bugs

Please report any bugs via the Linaro Bugzilla.