advance-toolchain-linux-on-power

Advance Toolchain for Linux on IBM Power Systems

Open-source compilers, runtime libraries, and development tools that allow users to take advantage of the latest IBM POWER hardware features on Linux.

IBM Advance Toolchain for Linux on Power 15.0-7 is now available! Learn more

Get started

This self-contained toolchain does not rely on the system toolchain and requires minimal dependencies. Nor does it override the default Linux distribution toolchain (it is installed in /opt). The latest release includes current stable versions of the following packages:

  • GNU Compiler Collection (gcc, g++, and gfortran), plus individually optimized gcc runtime libraries for supported POWER processors
  • GNU C library (glibc), individually optimized for supported POWER processors
  • GNU Binary Utilities (binutils)
  • Decimal Floating Point Library (libdfp), optimized with hardware DFP support for POWER
  • IBM Power Architecture Facilities Library (PAFLib)
  • GNU Debugger (gdb)
  • Python
  • Performance analysis tools (valgrind, itrace)
  • Multi-core exploitation libraries (TBB, Userspace RCU, SPHDE)
  • Plus several support libraries (libhugetlbfs, Boost, zlib...)

Why should I use Advance Toolchain?

The Advance Toolchain provides toolchain functionality earlier and a group of optimized libraries. AT is highly recommended when you want to build an optimized CPU-bound application on POWER. It's also useful when you want some of the new toolchain functionalities on POWER before they make it into a distribution. Also, you must use AT when you link with a library built with AT.

In some scenarios, you do not get many advantages by using the Advance Toolchain, and it is easier to use the distribution's toolchain that usually performs well. Such cases include building applications that are not CPU-bound and on I/O constrained environments.

Advance Toolchain features

  • Support for little endian (ppc64le)
  • POWER8 optimized runtime libraries
  • POWER9 optimized runtime libraries
  • POWER10 optimized runtime libraries
  • Advance Toolchain is supported by IBM

To find out which toolkit release is optimized for your distribution and version, see the installation page. Always choose the latest version available.

Hardware features

  • POWER10 enablement
  • POWER9 enablement
  • POWER8 enablement
  • POWER8 optimized scheduler
  • POWER8 Crypto Operations enablement
  • POWER8 Fusion enablement
  • POWER8 Transactional Memory enablement

Did you know?

The Advance Toolchain provides cross compilers that run on Intel x86 and generate code for Power, which allows teams to start developing by compiling and linking an application targeted for the POWER architecture without requiring access to an actual POWER system. The binaries produced can then be run in a POWER runtime environment (either real or emulated).