Update GCC compiler in Ubuntu 14.04 to 4.9

Question

Can I upgrade my GCC compiler now in Ubuntu 14.04? Has the final usable version (4.9) been released?

Solution

Some core packages never get their versions upgraded in a release. GCC is one of those. Neither GCC 4.7 nor 4.8 were ever available for Ubuntu 12.04 officially (even via backports). GCC 4.9 is only being built for 14.10 and 15.04. You'll have to use the Toolchain PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc-4.9