This package is known to behave badly when you have changed its default optimization flags (including the -march and -mcpu options). GCC is best left alone. Therefore, if you have defined any environment variables that override default optimizations, such as CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, we recommend unsetting or modifying them when building GCC. You have been warned. We will be building the C and C++ compilers at this time, so you'll need to unpack both the gcc-core and gcc-g++ tarballs. Other compilers are available in the full gcc package; instructions for building them may be found at . It is recommended by the GCC installation documentation to build GCC in a dedicated directory outside of the source tree. Create the build directory: mkdir ../gcc-build && cd ../gcc-build Prepare GCC to be compiled: ../gcc-&gcc-version;/configure --prefix=/usr --enable-shared \     --enable-threads=posix --with-slibdir=/lib \     --enable-__cxa_atexit --enable-clocale=gnu The meanings of the configure options are: --enable-threads=posix: This enables C++ exception handling for multi-threaded code. --enable-__cxa_atexit: This option will result in C++ shared libraries and C++ programs that are interoperable with other Linux distributions. --enable-clocale=gnu: There is a risk that some people will build ABI incompatible C++ libraries if they didn't install all of the glibc localedata. Using --enable-clocale=gnu ensures that the "right thing" is done in all cases. If you don't wish to use this option, then at least build the de_DE locale. When GCC finds this specific locale, then the correct locale mode (gnu) is implemented. Continue with compiling the package: make bootstrap The bootstrap target doesn't just compile GCC, but it compiles GCC a multiple times. It uses the first compiled programs to compile itself a second and third time to make sure the compiler was compiled properly. Finish installing the package: make install Some packages require that the C++ compiler be installed in the /lib and /usr/lib directories. To honor those packages, create two symlinks: ln -s ../usr/bin/cpp /lib && ln -s ../bin/cpp /usr/lib Many packages compile using cc as the name for the C compiler. To satisfy those packages, create a cc symlink: ln -s gcc /usr/bin/cc