Apply the patches: patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-&gcc2-version;-2.patch && patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-&gcc2-version;-no-fixinc.patch && patch -Np1 -i ../gcc-&gcc2-version;-returntype-fix.patch The gcc development team recommends building in a separate directory. mkdir ../gcc-build && cd ../gcc-build Configure gcc to build the C and C++ compilers and enable the related C++ options. ../gcc-&gcc2-version;/configure \ --prefix=/opt/gcc-&gcc2-version; \ --enable-shared --enable-languages=c,c++ \ --enable-threads=posix Compile and install gcc: make bootstrap && make install Make note of the library that is installed. L=`find /opt/gcc-&gcc2-version;/lib -name "*libstdc++*.so" -type f` && IL=`basename $L` Move the C++ libraries to the standard lib directory to avoid having to add /opt/gcc-&gcc2-version;/lib to /etc/ld.so.conf. for i in /opt/gcc-&gcc2-version;/lib/*.so*; do mv -f $i /usr/lib; ln -sf /usr/lib/`basename $i` /opt/gcc-&gcc2-version;/lib; done Create symlinks required by commercial and precompiled packages. ln -sf $IL /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2 && ln -sf $IL /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 && ln -sf $IL /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.3-2.so.3