You may be able to use an older major GCC release to build a cross-compiler of a newer major GCC release. You can view your current compiler version by invoking: If your local system compiler isn't too terribly old (at least GCC 4.6.0), you may wish to save yourself the trouble and just pick the latest minor release (such as 4.6.3 if your system compiler is 4.6.1) for your cross-compiler. You can also use older releases as they are usually reasonably good. If you are not using the latest major GCC release for your system compiler, we recommend that you build the newest GCC as your system compiler. For instance, you may run into trouble if you use GCC 4.6.3 to build a GCC 4.8.0 cross-compiler. The newest GCC is recommended as it is the latest and greatest release. Which compiler version to choose Main article: Building GCC If you have already attempted to make an operating system without using a cross-compiler, please read the article Why do I need a Cross Compiler?. This will certainly give you a lot of problems in the future and the solution is build a cross-compiler. Some tutorials suggest using your system compiler and passing a lot of problematic options to the compiler. If you use the compiler that comes with your system, then the compiler won't know it is compiling something else entirely. The compiler must know the correct target platform (CPU, operating system), otherwise you will run into trouble. You need to use a cross-compiler unless you are developing on your own operating system. Why cross-compilers are necessary Main article: Why do I need a Cross Compiler? This is why we need to build a cross-compiler first, you will most certainly run into trouble otherwise. It is important to realize that these two platforms are not the same the operating system you are developing is always going to be different from the operating system you currently use.

In our case, the host platform is your current operating system and the target platform is the operating system you are about to make. These two platforms may (but do not need to) differ in CPU, operating system, and/or executable format. Generally speaking, a cross-compiler is a compiler that runs on platform A (the host), but generates executables for platform B (the target).

5.3 Building GCC: the directory that should contain system headers does not exist.

2.3 Linux Users building a System Compiler.

Gcc for mac os