System prerequisites

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Ensure that your system meets all prerequisites before installing the product. Failure to meet the prerequisites will cause the installation or configuration of the compiler to fail.

The requirements for installing IBM® XL C/C++ for Linux® 16.1.1 are listed below:

Supported platforms

You can use any of the following little endian operating systems supported by the IBM Power Systems servers:
  • Ubuntu Server 16.04
  • Ubuntu Server 18.04
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 (SLES 12)
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 Service Pack 3 (SLES 12 SP3)
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 (SLES 15)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 (RHEL 7.4)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 for Power® Little Endian (POWER9™)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 (RHEL 7.5)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 for Power Little Endian (POWER9)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 (RHEL 7.6)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7 (RHEL 7.7) (supported since V16.1.1.7)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 (RHEL 8.0) (supported since V16.1.1.3)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 (RHEL 8.1) (supported since V16.1.1.6)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 (RHEL 8.2) (supported since V16.1.1.9)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 (RHEL 8.4) (supported since V16.1.1.11)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 (RHEL 8.6) (supported since V16.1.1.13)
  • Community Enterprise Operating System 7 (CentOS 7)
Note: To compile programs that contain code used to offload computation to the NVIDIA GPUs, you must use a system that satisfies the installation requirements of the CUDA Toolkit. See the NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit website for more information.

NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit 9.2, 10.1, and 11.7 with support for IBM Power Little Endian (POWER9), which are available from NVIDIA, are required for the compilation and linking process for programs that use OpenMP 4.5 to offload computation to the NVIDIA GPUs. Install NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit 9.2 if your compiler version is 16.1.1.0, 16.1.1.1, or 16.1.1.2. Install NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit 10.1 if your compiler version is between 16.1.1.3 to 16.1.1.12. Install NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit 11.7 if your compiler version is 16.1.1.13 or up.

More operation systems will be supported in later releases or fix packs. For more information, check Fix list for XL C/C++ for Linux.

Hardware requirements

You can use any IBM Power Systems server as long as it is supported by your operating system distribution. For a complete list of the IBM Power Systems servers, see https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/power.

  • Approximately 200 MB for product packages
  • Minimum of 2 GB hard drive space for paging
  • Minimum of 512 MB for temporary files
  • 2 GB RAM minimum; 4 GB or more RAM recommended
Note: High levels of optimization and large applications can require more space for paging and temporary files, and can require more RAM.

To verify that you have enough hard disk space available, see Verifying the amount of hard disk space available.

Software requirements

To determine which GNU and Perl packages are required to run the compiler on your operating system, consult the relevant table below. To verify that the required packages are installed, see Verifying that the required GNU and Perl packages are installed.

Table 1. Required minimum versions of GNU and Perl packages for the Ubuntu 18.04 operating system
Package name Version requirements
gcc 7.3.0
g++ 7.3.0
libc6 2.27
libstdc++6 7.3.0
libgcc1 8
libc6-dev 2.27
libstdc++-dev 7.3.0
perl 5.26.1
Table 2. Required minimum versions of GNU and Perl packages for the Ubuntu 16.04 operating systems
Package name Version requirements
gcc 4.8.2
g++ 4.8.2
libc6 2.19
libstdc++6 4.8.2
libgcc1 4.9
libc6-dev 2.19
libstdc++-dev 4.8.2
perl 5.18.2
Table 3. Required minimum versions of GNU and Perl packages for the SLES 15 operating system
Package name Version requirements
gcc 7.3.1
gcc-c++ 7.3.1
glibc 2.26
libgcc_s1 7.3.1
libstdc++6 7.3.1
glibc-devel 2.26
libstdc++-devel 7.3.1
perl 5.26.1
Table 4. Required minimum versions of GNU and Perl packages for the SLES 12 and SLES 12 SP3 operating systems
Package name Version requirements
gcc 4.8
gcc-c++ 4.8
glibc 2.19
libgcc_s1 4.8.3
libstdc++6 4.8.3
glibc-devel 2.19
libstdc++-devel 4.8.3
perl 5.18.2
Table 5. Required minimum versions of GNU and Perl packages for the RHEL 7.4, RHEL 7.4 for Power Little Endian (POWER9), RHEL 7.5, RHEL 7.5 for Power Little Endian (POWER9), RHEL 7.6, and CentOS 7 operating systems
Package name Version requirements
gcc 4.8.3
gcc-c++ 4.8.3
glibc 2.17
libgcc 4.8.3
libstdc++ 4.8.3
glibc-devel 2.17
libstdc++-devel 4.8.3
perl 5.16.3
Table 6. Required minimum versions of GNU and Perl packages for the RHEL 8.1 operating system
Package name Version requirements
gcc 8.3.1
gcc-c++ 8.3.1
glibc 2.28
libstdc++ 8.3.1
libgcc 8.3.1
glibc-dev 2.28
libstdc++-dev 8.3.1
perl 5.26.3

You can find the XL C/C++ Runtime Environment package at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/795884.

To view the online documentation for IBM XL C/C++ for Linux 16.1.1, you need the following environment and tools:

  • A graphical desktop environment (such as K Desktop Environment or GNOME) that supports web browsers and PDF viewers
  • A frames-capable HTML browser (to access help and other web pages)
  • A PDF viewer (to access PDF documentation)