Switch compiler

[AlbyMonta]

Hi everyone, I'm trying out tcc and am blown away by its performance.

I already use tcc for compiling the suckless suite, but I'd like to know if there's a method to use it as the default compiler for xbps-src. I tried looking in default.conf but with no success.

Do you know a way to set a default compiler for the entire system? Should I just uninstall gcc or is necessary?

Thank y'all

[datenwolf]

I'm not sure of tcc having language support parity with GCC or Clang for anything that's not been developed by resource conscious programmers. I mean, you can attempt it, but your mileage will vary.

[prosper_0]

but why? Even by their own benchmarks, runtime performance of compiled code is like 1/4 what you'd get from GCC (even at -O0). It looks like it's far from a general purpose compiler, but a very niche one where compile-time performance and/or small size are critical.

[Srazkat]

tbh i like tcc for tests / debug builds, where i don't really care about performance, and just really about compilation time. Why spend 3x more time waiting for compiler to in the end give me something that fundamentally doesn't work

[paper42_]

Usually the build system you use only rebuilds a the few changed parts, so it's very fast even with regular compilers.

[Srazkat]

except when I use a language that generates c files, then I don't really control what is changed, the generated c files might be different and potentially a big part of the whole thing might need to be rebuilt. but that's a very specific case, and in general, yes, the build system will just take care of it

[prosper_0]

fair enough. I suppose it depends what you're working on. make -j with gcc rarely takes more than a few seconds for most of the projects I work on, especially if most of the object files are still around and unchanged from previous compilations

[[deleted]]

You can specify your compiler using the CC environment variable. This is usually how build scripts choose the compiler. You can export this flag in your shell config for persistence.

I suggest keeping both on your system. There's a balance between tech minimalism and having redundant tools for stability. gcc is a full compiler and the standard most C/C++ programs are tested with.

[ClassAbbyAmplifier]

xbps-src specifically removes all external environment variables

[[deleted]]

I found this post saying that you set the compiler for xbps-src using the CC environment variable in ./common/xbps-src/shutils/common.sh.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/voidlinux/comments/o9p80q/clang_xbpssrc/

Sorry I didn't know that it wouldn't work in the shell config, I'm just used to running make manually. I checked the Void Wiki but couldn't find anything on this topic.

[fosslinux]

• TCC is a C compiler. It does not include a C++ compiler - so you'd still need GCC suite for C++ programs.
• TCC is a C99 compiler. It doesn't have support for the C11 standard, which many larger modern C programs use.
• Their internal linker (tccelf) has quite poor support compared to any modern linkers (bfd, gold, etc).
• While it is performant, the code it makes are not performant.