Actually, you can distribute a program compiled with a newer g++ compiler on a vanilla CentOS 6 platform. There are several ways to do this: The easiest is to use the DevToolset 3, which will give you g++ 4.9.2 (the dev toolset 2 will give you gcc 4.8.2). Then, just compile your application with this g++. When distributing your software, you need to make sure to also ship the libstdc++.so
that is being shipped with g++ 4.9. Either set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH
so it gets picked up on startup, or set the RPATH to tell your executable where to look first for libraries.
Essentially, you can do this also with newer compilers, but then you first need to compile the compiler itself. If you don't want to compile a compiler first, go with a respective dev toolset and you should be fine.
Yes, you can also try to statically link libstdc++.a. Search for the option -static-libstdc++
:
When the g++ program is used to link a C++ program, it normally automatically links against libstdc++. If libstdc++ is available as a shared library, and the -static option is not used, then this links against the shared version of libstdc++. That is normally fine. However, it is sometimes useful to freeze the version of libstdc++ used by the program without going all the way to a fully static link. The -static-libstdc++ option directs the g++ driver to link libstdc++ statically, without necessarily linking other libraries statically.
But if you statically link, you will not get any security updates etc. Granted, you will not get the updates, if you ship libstdc++.so on your own as well, but incremental updates maybe easier.
And with respect to running your application: The rule of thumb is: Compile on the oldest platform you need to support, then your binaries (with self-shipped libstdc++ and other required libs) will likely work also on newer versions. That is, if you compile on CentoOS 6, and it works, then you can expect it to also work on CentOS 7. On a related subject, this is exactly the reason why for instance AppImage and related solutions recommend to build on an old system.