How to Upgrade GCC on CentOS 7 & 8 Using Red Hat Developer Toolset

CentOS 7 Upgrade GCC Version

Red Hat provides a Developer Toolset that lets you manage GCC versions without recompiling, allowing multiple versions to coexist and be switched on demand.

Mapping of devtoolset packages to GCC versions:

devtoolset-3  → GCC 4.x.x
devtoolset-4  → GCC 5.x.x
devtoolset-6  → GCC 6.x.x
devtoolset-7  → GCC 7.x.x
devtoolset-8  → GCC 8.x.x
devtoolset-9  → GCC 9.x.x
devtoolset-10 → GCC 10.x.x

Install devtoolset on CentOS 7 via the centos-release-scl repository:

yum install centos-release-scl
yum install devtoolset-8

Or add the repository manually (example for CentOS 7):

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-SCLo-scl.repo
[centos-sclo-sclo]
name=CentOS-7 - SCLo sclo
baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/sclo/$basearch/rh/
#mirrorlist=...
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-SIG-SCLo

Activate the new GCC version for the current session:

scl enable devtoolset-8 bash
# or
source /opt/rh/devtoolset-8/enable

Running gcc --version now shows GCC 8.x.x. This change is only effective for the current shell; to make it permanent, add the appropriate environment variables to your profile.

CentOS 8 Upgrade GCC

CentOS 8 ships with GCC 8.x.x by default, but higher versions can be installed via Red Hat's gcc‑toolset packages.

Mapping of gcc‑toolset packages to GCC versions:

gcc-toolset-9  → GCC 9.x.x
gcc-toolset-10 → GCC 10.x.x
gcc-toolset-11 → GCC 11.x.x

Example: Upgrade to GCC 10.x.x

1. Configure YUM/DNF repository

vim /etc/yum.repos.d/Centos-8.repo
[base]
name=CentOS-$releasever - Base - mirrors.aliyun.com
failovermethod=priority
baseurl=http://mirrors.aliyun.com/centos/$releasever/BaseOS/$basearch/os/
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1

[extras]
name=CentOS-$releasever - Extras - mirrors.aliyun.com
failovermethod=priority
baseurl=http://mirrors.aliyun.com/centos/$releasever/extras/$basearch/os/
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
gpgkey=http://mirrors.aliyun.com/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-Official

[AppStream]
name=CentOS-$releasever - AppStream - mirrors.aliyun.com
failovermethod=priority
baseurl=http://mirrors.aliyun.com/centos/$releasever/AppStream/$basearch/os/
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1

[8-AppStream]
name=CentOS-$releasever - 8-AppStream
baseurl=http://mirrors.aliyun.com/centos/8-stream/AppStream/$basearch/os/
gpgcheck=0
enabled=1

2. Install gcc‑toolset‑10

dnf install gcc-toolset-10

3. Activate the new GCC version

scl enable gcc-toolset-10 bash
# or
source /opt/rh/gcc-toolset-10/enable

After activation, gcc --version reports GCC 10.x.x. As with CentOS 7, this activation is session‑only; add the enable script to your shell startup files for a permanent change.