[Bug 2150814] Re: Add alternative to gcc packages

[Matthias Klose]

closing as won't fix. GCC versions change ABIs in between major version,
for some front ends, and for some architectures. This is generally
unsafe. The safe alternative is setting these via for your build
environment explicitly (CC=, CXX= ...)


** Changed in: gcc-16 (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Won't Fix

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Title:
  Add alternative to gcc packages

Status in gcc-16 package in Ubuntu:
  Won't Fix

Bug description:
  It would be nice to have an alternative added automatically during gcc installation so I can change easily the gcc version in my system.
  Here is my problem: I installed gcc 16 on 26.04 LTS. In this release the default version still is 15.
  Since the package gcc, where the command /usr/bin/gcc is, is for version 15.0, would be nice to add an alternative so I can execute sudo update-alternatives --config gcc and then select version 16.0. If I want to use it, I need to manually add the alternative.

  Another option would be to create a package like gcc-16-bin where the
  command /usr/bin/gcc points to gcc-16, but I think Debian/Ubuntu uses
  alternatives instead of Fedora-based distros where this *-bin packages
  are used.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 26.04
  Package: gcc-16 16-20260322-1ubuntu1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 7.0.0-15.15-generic 7.0.0
  Uname: Linux 7.0.0-15-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.34.0-0ubuntu2
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
  CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
  Date: Sat May  2 10:01:03 2026
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-11-26 (1618 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 21.10 "Impish Indri" - Release amd64 (20211012)
  SourcePackage: gcc-16
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to resolute on 2026-02-28 (63 days ago)

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