Re: Upgrading gcc

On 2026-08-03, Marco Moock <[email protected]> wrote:

> Am 03.08.26 um 08:05 schrieb Charlie Gibbs:
>
>> I'm currently helping a friend upgrade his copy of Darktable.
>> The latest snag is that the build process wants GCC 12, while
>> his machine, running Mint 21, only has GCC 11.  After scanning
>> the web for advice, I've tried to upgrade the compiler.  At
>> best I got to where typing "gcc --version" on the command line
>> reports version 12, but Darktable's build.sh still managed to
>> find (and reject) the old GCC 11.  Any ideas, short of doing
>> a dist-upgrade to Mint 22?
>
> Is gcc11 still installed?
>
> Maybe it picks that by using a full path.

I tried uninstalling it and installing gcc-12, but that wasn't
enough to make the script look for gcc12.

> Is there any reason not to upgrade the OS?

Not really - just fear.  This was on a laptop that a friend
brought over.  To me, the scariest part of Linux is doing an
OS upgrade; most of the time it goes smoothly, but if something
goes sideways you can be in for a world of hurt.  I suggested
that he take a full backup before attempting it; I do this on
my own machines, because something once went so wrong that I
had to re-format the root partition and restore from backup
(a dd of /dev/sda1) before trying again.

Update: my buddy did the upgrade and now has GCC 12.  That
should enable us to continue with the project, so I'll
consider the matter closed.  Trying to substitute a compiler
that's not part of a given release sounds like too much
work and potential hassle - I've heard horror stories about
"Frankendebian", etc. - so in future I'll just do the full
upgrade (after taking comprehensivce backups, of course).

-- 
/~\  Charlie Gibbs                  |  In this world there are
\ /  <[email protected]>      |  two kinds of people:
 X   I'm really at ac.dekanfrus     |  1. Those who can extrapolate
/ \  if you read it the right way.  |  from incomplete data.