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That's wonderful news. But here I am stuck on the latest centos running 4.8. They haven't even made the switch to abi breaking 5.0

aristidb 10y ago
You can install a devtoolset[1] to get a newer GCC which keeps ABI compatibility. I'm using gcc 6.2.1 on CentOS 7 that way. [1]: https://www.softwarecollections.org/en/scls/rhscl/devtoolset-6/ https://www.softwarecollections.org/en/scls/rhscl/devtoolset...
- noselasd 10y ago
  And to be clear, devtoolset/softwarecollections.org is done by Red Hat - it's not some random third party repository providing some use-at-your-own-risk packages.
Alupis 10y ago
> But here I am stuck on the latest centos running 4.8 > They haven't even made the switch to abi breaking 5.0 That's kind of the point of RHEL/CentOS releases... stability above all else. RHEL/CentOS 8.x will likely include a much newer, but still not bleeding-edge version of gcc and friends. You can always download the source and compile a newer gcc if you have that requirement... or perhaps try EPEL repo's.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  EPEL is extra packages, not usually newer packages. Software Collections is a variety of curated newer packages (including devtoolset, which includes GCC). https://www.softwarecollections.org https://www.softwarecollections.org
bandrami 10y ago
Then that's wonderful news to you: your long-release-cycle OS insulates you from every single worry about this update. This is why distributions like CentOS and Debian Stable exist. (I just realized that might sound sarcastic to The Kids These Days, but it's 100% serious: that's the whole point of these long-term distributions, and those of us who have to manage large numbers of systems love it.)
- gpderetta 10y ago
  And it's not like gcc 4.8 was a bad compiler anyway. It has decent C++14 support too.
- yzmtf2008 10y ago
  ... which in turn resulted in TensorFlow not being able to be used in clusters for a long, long time: https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/issues/110 https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/issues/110
  - bandrami 10y ago
    Which was the point. That was a long, long list of TensorFlow bugs that were avoided.
    - xorcist 10y ago
      I just want to add to that, just to offer a perspective that people not concerned with the upkeep of software always realize: In the general case, when you keep software around for long some bugs will linger. But as long as the issues are well known that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes you have to work around some corner case or performance anomaly in another layer. You don't want to apply fixes to underlying software willy-nilly without first re-evaluating what you did. So sometimes stable distributions will avoid fixing bugs for good reason. (That doesn't go for security issues, of course.) And if that's not what you want most distributions have a more suitable branch for you.
      - bandrami 10y ago
        > most distributions have a more suitable branch for you Exactly. CentOS has Fedora, Debian has sid/ubuntu/derivatives, Slackware has -current. If you don't require a stable platform (and most developers don't) then you're welcome to join people on the unstable side of things, making the next stable side of things.
        10y ago
djsumdog 10y ago
My rolling release Gentoo I started building in 2012 is still on gcc 4.9.4. (Although I do see 5.4.0 installed in a slot). It's been years since I did a gcc update. They're not for the weak of heart of spirit. I might decide to do a full backup soon and do it again soon.
- mrpippy 10y ago
  5.4.0 was just stabilized on amd64 in the last few weeks, so you're not far behind. You do have to rebuild a lot of packages (anything C++), but it all went smoothly for me.
- Filligree 10y ago
  I find them quite simple, but then, I'm on NixOS. :-) Which is not an operating system I'd normally recommend to... anyone. If you like Gentoo, though, then you might quite appreciate its build system. Worth a look?
- Qantourisc 10y ago
  He I'm on 6.3.0 :p (for Zen compile target.)

aristidb 10y ago

You can install a devtoolset[1] to get a newer GCC which keeps ABI compatibility. I'm using gcc 6.2.1 on CentOS 7 that way. [1]: https://www.softwarecollections.org/en/scls/rhscl/devtoolset-6/ https://www.softwarecollections.org/en/scls/rhscl/devtoolset...

noselasd 10y ago
And to be clear, devtoolset/softwarecollections.org is done by Red Hat - it's not some random third party repository providing some use-at-your-own-risk packages.

Alupis 10y ago

> But here I am stuck on the latest centos running 4.8 > They haven't even made the switch to abi breaking 5.0 That's kind of the point of RHEL/CentOS releases... stability above all else. RHEL/CentOS 8.x will likely include a much newer, but still not bleeding-edge version of gcc and friends. You can always download the source and compile a newer gcc if you have that requirement... or perhaps try EPEL repo's.

SwellJoe 10y ago
EPEL is extra packages, not usually newer packages. Software Collections is a variety of curated newer packages (including devtoolset, which includes GCC). https://www.softwarecollections.org https://www.softwarecollections.org

bandrami 10y ago

Then that's wonderful news to you: your long-release-cycle OS insulates you from every single worry about this update. This is why distributions like CentOS and Debian Stable exist. (I just realized that might sound sarcastic to The Kids These Days, but it's 100% serious: that's the whole point of these long-term distributions, and those of us who have to manage large numbers of systems love it.)

gpderetta 10y ago
And it's not like gcc 4.8 was a bad compiler anyway. It has decent C++14 support too.
yzmtf2008 10y ago
... which in turn resulted in TensorFlow not being able to be used in clusters for a long, long time: https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/issues/110 https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/issues/110
- bandrami 10y ago
  Which was the point. That was a long, long list of TensorFlow bugs that were avoided.
  - xorcist 10y ago
    I just want to add to that, just to offer a perspective that people not concerned with the upkeep of software always realize: In the general case, when you keep software around for long some bugs will linger. But as long as the issues are well known that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes you have to work around some corner case or performance anomaly in another layer. You don't want to apply fixes to underlying software willy-nilly without first re-evaluating what you did. So sometimes stable distributions will avoid fixing bugs for good reason. (That doesn't go for security issues, of course.) And if that's not what you want most distributions have a more suitable branch for you.
    - bandrami 10y ago
      > most distributions have a more suitable branch for you Exactly. CentOS has Fedora, Debian has sid/ubuntu/derivatives, Slackware has -current. If you don't require a stable platform (and most developers don't) then you're welcome to join people on the unstable side of things, making the next stable side of things.
      - 10y ago

djsumdog 10y ago

My rolling release Gentoo I started building in 2012 is still on gcc 4.9.4. (Although I do see 5.4.0 installed in a slot). It's been years since I did a gcc update. They're not for the weak of heart of spirit. I might decide to do a full backup soon and do it again soon.

mrpippy 10y ago
5.4.0 was just stabilized on amd64 in the last few weeks, so you're not far behind. You do have to rebuild a lot of packages (anything C++), but it all went smoothly for me.
Filligree 10y ago
I find them quite simple, but then, I'm on NixOS. :-) Which is not an operating system I'd normally recommend to... anyone. If you like Gentoo, though, then you might quite appreciate its build system. Worth a look?
Qantourisc 10y ago
He I'm on 6.3.0 :p (for Zen compile target.)