Toolchain Options in 2023: What's New in Compilers and Libcs? - Bernhard Rosenkränzer, BayLibre

Toolchain Options in 2023: What's New in Compilers and Libcs? - Bernhard Rosenkränzer, BayLibre

Up until not too long ago, it was clear what you had to do when building a toolchain for your new system (embedded or otherwise) -- build GNU binutils, a minimal version of gcc, then glibc, then a more full-featured version of gcc for the target. In more recent years, other options have come up and started to receive some attention: LLVM and elfutils have alternative implementations of binutils, mold is getting ready as a viable alternative to BFD ld, gold and lld, clang can replace gcc almost everywhere (and in some situations, even tcc might be sufficient), and there's numerous libc implementations to choose from. Many SoCs come with a platform SDK including a toolchain - but is that always the best option? (Spoiler: The answer is a two-letter word) This talk shows the available options, their unique advantages and drawbacks, and some pitfalls you may want to be aware of before making your choice for the toolchain used with your next embedded system.