14 DAY TRIAL // Debian developer Matthias Klose has announced that the new GCC 6 compiler, which will be made the default GCC compiler for the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" operating system, is now available in the Debian Testing repos.
Debian users who are currently using Debian Testing can make GCC 6 the default compiler by installing the gcc/g++ packages from experimental. If installing it, they are also urged to help fix reported built failures in Debian Testing and Debian Unstable.
Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" could be released later this year, and it looks like not only will it ship with GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) 6 by default, but the old GCC 4.9 and GCC 5 compiler won't even be available in the upcoming distribution.
"As announced a year ago, GCC 6 will be the default GCC for the Debian stretch release. GCC 6 is now available in testing," says Matthias Klose in the mailing list announcement. "It is my goal to release stretch without GCC 4.9 and GCC 5."
The developer has also informed the Debian community that GCC 6 will become the default compiler for Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" sometime next month, most probably immediately after the release of GCC 6.2.0, which should be out at the end of July 2016.
In related news, the maintainers of the binutils collection of binary tools for GNU/Linux operating systems have announced recently that they've switched to a six-month release cycle, which means that Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" should also come with binutils 2.27 or 2.28.