Consider updating Clang (again) #285
Description
We made the decision to update our toolchain (see #263) and then later made the decision to drop support for Debian 11, Ubuntu 20.04, and EL8 before their EOLs.
The toolchain we decided on was Clang 16 (only because Clang 15 wouldn't have worked), but had these decisions been made in the reverse order, a newer version of Clang might have been chosen. Switching to a newer version may ease the transition to distro-provided compilers.
Here's a table of the versions of Clang and GCC available on the distributions we support, plus Debian testing (Debian 13 is imminent) and AlmaLinux 10.0-kitty (RHEL 10 is out but none of the rebuilds have a release yet):
| Distribution | Distro EOL | Available Clang versions (default emphasized) | Available GCC versions (default emphasized) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 22.04 | 2027-04 | 11.1.0, 12.0.1, 13.0.1, 14.0.0, 15.0.7 | 3.3.6, 9.5.0, 10.5.0, 11.4.0, 12.3.0 |
| Ubuntu 24.04 | 2029-04 | 14.0.6, 15.0.7, 16.0.6, 17.0.6, 18.1.3 | 3.3.6, 9.5.0, 10.5.0, 11.4.0, 12.3.0, 13.2.0, 14.2.0 |
| Debian 12 | 2028-06-30 | 13.0.1, 14.0.6, 15.0.6, 16.0.6, 19.1.4 | 3.3.6, 11.3.0, 12.2.0 |
| Debian 13 (testing) | 17.0.6, 18.1.8, 19.1.7 | 12.4.0, 13.3.0, 14.2.1 | |
| EL9.5 (Rocky) | 2032-05-31 | 18.1.8 | 11.5.0, 12.2.1, 13.3.1, 14.2.1 |
| EL9.6 (Alma, Oracle) | 2032-05-31 | 19.1.7 | 11.5.0, 12.2.1, 13.3.1, 14.2.1 |
| EL9 EPEL | 2032-05-31 | 13.0.1 (libs only), 15.0.7, 16.0.6 (libs only) | |
| EL10.0 (Alma) | 2035-05-13 | 19.1.7 | 14.2.1 |
| EL10 EPEL | 2035-05-13 | 15.0.7 |
Note that the table is different from the one in #263, as Clang has shifted in EL9, and Debian 12 has added Clang 19.
Just something to think about.