OpenMandriva Lx Is Switching To Clang By Default

While OS X has switched to LLVM's Clang as the default C/C++ compiler and FreeBSD and other BSD distributions have followed in switching to Clang instead of GCC due to its more permissive license, OpenMandriva Lx is one of the first notable Linux distributions set to switch to Clang by default with its next release.

Beginning with OpenMandriva Lx 2015, LLVM's Clang compiler is replacing GCC as the default compiler on the Mandriva-derived distribution. The GNU Compiler Collection will still be present on the system, but Clang has now become the default compiler.

The decision to switch to Clang for OpenMandriva Lx 2015 was due to Clang more rapidly progressing, most packages building fine under Clang, faster compile times, and the other widely promoted benefits of Clang. Most of the build issues for OpenMandriva Lx packages have been easily fixed.

Those wishing to learn more about OpenMandriva Lx switching over to Clang can see last month's LPC 2014 PDF slides by OpenMandriva's Bernhard Rosenkränzer. On a related note, at LinuxCon Europe was a talk by Samsung promoting LLVM's Clang as "Clang & LLVM: How they can improve your life as a developer" with these PDF slides.