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Compaq
C Version 6.2 for Linux Alpha is available
for immediate download upon acceptance of
license terms and filling out an online registration
form. In addition to the compiler, the kit
includes the Compaq Portable Math Library
(CPML) and the ladebug debugger ported from Tru64™ UNIX®.
Documentation includes man pages, a Language
Reference Manual, and a Programmers
Guide.
Compaq
C Version 6.2 provides the same code optimization
technology used in Compaq Fortran for Linux
Alpha, which is up-to-date with the very
latest compilers for Compaq's Tru64 UNIX.
This technology can provide significant performance
improvements in applications previously built
for Linux Alpha. In some floating-point intensive
applications, for example, improvements of
a factor of two or more have been seen, while
more modest improvements on the order of
15% to 30% are more often seen for integer
codes.
The
compiler supports most language features
and options provided by the newest C compilers
for Tru64 UNIX. Some notable exceptions are
OpenMP, 128-bit long double, feedback-based
optimization, -[x]taso and pointer_size pragmas,
and structured exception handling. These
features rely on underlying support in Tru64
UNIX that is not currently available on Linux
Alpha.
The
compiler also contains some enhancements
that are not yet available in the Tru64 UNIX
compiler. These are primarily features to
ease compilation of reasonably portable code
that has become somewhat dependent on gcc
features (i.e. full compatibilty with all
gcc language features is not provided). The
compiler driver (ccc) also accepts either
Tru64 UNIX command line options or gcc command
line options, or a mixture of the two. The
intent is to minimize the makefile editing
required to build programs originally developed
on either Tru64 UNIX or on Linux Alpha.
The
compiler and associated software have been
tested most heavily under the Red Hat 5.2
distribution, but there has also been significant
testing under Red Hat 6.0 and SuSE 6.1 distributions.
Other distributions have not been tested
at all, although information from Beta testers
suggests that problems encountered under
Debian 2.1 are likely to have been reduced
or resolved in this version.
Because
the downloads are currently available only
with http, the small number of users who
had difficulty obtaining the kits intact
during the public Beta period might still
have problems. If you prefer to receive the
Compaq C compiler on a CDROM, you may order
part number QB-6G2AA-SA for a price of $49.
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