Features

• All GCC 8.3 features. For details on GCC 8 release series, please refer to the list of changes, new features, and fixes.
• Linaro specific pre-processor macros to ensure that this is a continuation from the Linaro releases.
• Spectre v1 mitigation backport from upstream FSF trunk include the revisions listed below. This is an initial backport of those mitigations in the GNU toolchain and should be regarded as support for prototyping and early access only. Moreover, while the backports include support for the other architectures, they are included for completeness and all issues regarding these patches must be taken up upstream in the https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla by reproducing the same with upstream FSF trunk. Arm is interested in feedback regarding these workarounds for Spectre v1. A description of the mitigation has been published on LWN.net.
  
  • Arm - add speculation_barrier pattern
  • AArch64 - add speculation barrier
  • AArch64 - Add new option -mtrack-speculation
  • AArch64 - disable CB[N]Z TB[N]Z when tracking speculation
  • AArch64 - new pass to add conditional-branch speculation tracking
  • AArch64 - use CSDB based sequences if speculation tracking is enabled
  • targhooks - provide an alternative hook for targets that never execute speculatively
  • pdp11 - example of a port not needing a speculation barrier
  • targhooks - Add ATTRIBUTE_UNUSED
  • x86 - add speculation_barrier pattern
  • rs6000 - add speculation_barrier pattern
  • nvptx - Define TARGET_HAVE_SPECULATION_SAFE_VALUE
  • fr30 - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • frv - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • iq2000 - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • m32r - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • mcore - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • msp430 - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • rx - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • v850 - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • stormy16 - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • h8300 - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • m68k - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • mn10300 - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • nios2 - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • spu - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed
  • pa - Define to speculation_safe_value_not_needed

Changes since Arm release GCC 8.2-2019.01

• Bug 4249 - gcc-arm-8 releases contain .la files.
• Bug 4251 - gcc-arm-8 mingw32 releases contain symlinks.
• Bug 4253 - gcc-arm-8.2-2019.01 release uses gdb-8.1 instead of gdb-8.2.
• Bug 4297 - ARM Toolchain use a Linux kernel headers -rc release.
• Each binary release file now contains manifest.txt file with configuration flags for each toolchain component.
• Additional Linaro ABE manifest files to build x86_64 host toolchains.
• Experimental multilib support for arm-eabi toolchain (multilib a+rm-profile with newlib-nano enabled).

Content

This release includes the following items:

Host requirements

The GNU Toolchains

Release Contains Files

Installation instructions

Extract XZ compressed release archive using TAR archiving utility:

$ tar -xJf gcc-arm-8.3-2019.03-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-8.3-2019.03-x86_64-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.xz.asc gcc-arm-8.3-2019.03-x86_64-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.xz: OK

The prebuilt binary bundles can be un-tarred and executed in place. Assuming a RHEL6 host. Unpack the Linux cross toolchain:

$ mkdir install-lnx
$ tar x -C install-lnx -f <filename>.tar.xz
$ PATH=`pwd`/install-lnx/aarch64/bin:$PATH 

Building toolchain from source

You can build GNU cross-toolchain for the A-profile from sources using Linaro ABE (Advanced Build Environment) and provided ABE manifest files.

Below example shows how to build gcc-arm-aarch64-linux-gnu toolchain from sources using Linaro ABE build system.

Instructions

Clone ABE one of the URL below and checkout the stable branch (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 (see Building Toolchains With ABE):

$ mkdir build && cd build

Configure ABE (from the build directory):

$ ../abe/configure

And finally build toolchain (from the build directory):

$ ../abe/abe.sh --manifest gcc-arm-aarch64-linux-gnu-abe-manifest.txt --build all

Known issues

• Spectre v1 mitigations are provided here for early access and thus might have stability issues. On AArch32 we are currently aware of one issue as documented at PR86951.
• GDB's Python support requires Python compiled with UCS-4 support (built with --enable-unicode=ucs4) for both hosts x86_64 and i686-mingw32.
• GDB's Python support requires Python DLL dependencies for i686-mingw32 host.
• Toolchains dedicated for i686-mingw32 host require mingw-w64 library, a complete runtime environment for GCC.

Ask questions

For any questions, please use the Arm Communities forums.

Report bugs

Please report any bugs via the Linaro Bugzilla.