Red Hat Software Collections

Red Hat Software Collections "Software Collections give you the power to build, install, and use multiple versions of software on the same system, without affecting system-wide installed packages"

For instance, RHEL6 comes with gcc 4.4.7, but also provides 6.3.1 (and later) via Software Collections (SCL).  

ksa@rhel6-64 $ scl enable devtoolset-6 'gcc --version' | head -1
gcc (GCC) 6.3.1 20170216 (Red Hat 6.3.1-3)

ksa@rhel6-64 $ scl enable devtoolset-7 'gcc --version' | head -1
gcc (GCC) 7.3.1 20180303 (Red Hat 7.3.1-5)

ksa@rhel6-64 $ scl enable devtoolset-8 'gcc --version' | head -1
gcc (GCC) 8.2.1 20180905 (Red Hat 8.2.1-3)

Newer versions of build-time package are available (eg, gcc, valgrind, make, etc) and run-time packages too (python, ruby, php, git, mariadb, maven, nodejs, perl, java, nginx, mysql, mongodb, postgresql, redis, etc).

And there are other related RPMs (fortran, c++, etc.). To see what is available run the command

scl -l
yum list installed | grep rhscl | grep -v '^ '   

The yum repo for SCL is SLAC RHEL6 Server Software Collections (slac-rhel-x86_64-server-6-rhscl-1). These are installed on public login hosts, if you do not have sudo on a host where it is needed, please send an email to unix-admin@slac.stanford.edu. 

For  Red Hat Developer Toolset Product Life Cycle please see:  https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/dts/ 

The current RPM names (versions subject to change) for the versions of gcc are:

ksa@rhel6-64l $ rpm -q devtoolset-6
devtoolset-6-6.1-1.el6.x86_64

The meta RPM "devtoolset-6" will install other meta RPMs: devtoolset-6-{perftools, runtime, toolchain}.  Here's an example with devtoolset-6:

ksa@rhel6-64l $ rpm -q --requires devtoolset-6
devtoolset-6-perftools  
devtoolset-6-runtime  
devtoolset-6-toolchain  

To use the newer versions in a bash script after the RPMs are installed (or see below for another method)

#-----------------------------------------
# to enable newer gcc from software collections:
# (replace devtoolset-6 with current version of devtoolset)
#-----------------------------------------
if [ -x /opt/rh/devtoolset-6/enable ]; then
  echo Enabling GCC from Developer Toolset
  source /opt/rh/devtoolset-6/enable
fi

To use the newer versions on the command line after the RPMs are installed
(this example is from devtoolset-4, but the same idea works for devtoolset-6):

user@host $ scl enable devtoolset-4 bash
bash-4.1$ gcc --version
gcc (GCC) 5.2.1 20150902 (Red Hat 5.2.1-2)
bash-4.1$ exit

ksa@iris02 $ scl enable devtoolset-4 'gcc --version'
gcc (GCC) 5.2.1 20150902 (Red Hat 5.2.1-2)
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

How to install Developer Toolset / Software Collections on CentOS 7:

$ sudo yum install centos-release-scl

$ sudo yum install devtoolset-6
$ scl enable devtoolset-6  'gcc --version | head -1'

gcc (GCC) 6.2.1 20160916 (Red Hat 6.2.1-3)

ksa@cdlogin3 $ scl --list | grep perl
rh-perl524

ksa@cdlogin3 $ cat ~ksa/public/perl.scl.example.pl
#!/usr/bin/scl enable rh-perl524 -- perl
print "$^V\n";

ksa@cdlogin3 $ ~ksa/public/perl.scl.example.pl
v5.24.0

Here is a python 3.7 example:

ksa@lnxcron $ cat ~ksa/bin/python-scl-test.py

#!/usr/bin/scl enable rh-python36 -- python
from platform import python_version
print('Hello, this is Python', python_version())

ksa@lnxcron $ ~ksa/bin/python-scl-test.py
Hello, this is Python 3.6.3

The Red Hat Developer Toolset (DTS) is intended to give developers access to updated compilers and tools for C and C++ development.

This fast-moving product will update frequently and will have a much shorter product life cycle and support term than Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

For more information on Red Hat Software Collections and Developer Toolset:

https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/rhscl
https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/dts/
https://www.softwarecollections.org/