Using alternatives(8) to enable lld

• August 27, 2019
• llvm  
• linux  
• fedora  

In this post, I remember how to use the alternatives(8) mechanism to make clang’s lld linker the default.

First, tell alternatives that lld is available and set it at a high priority:

$ sudo alternatives --install /usr/bin/ld ld /usr/bin/lld 80
$ sudo alternatives --auto ld

Then, just verify that it worked:

$ alternatives --display ld
ld - status is auto.
 link currently points to /usr/bin/lld
/usr/bin/ld.bfd - priority 50
/usr/bin/ld.gold - priority 30
/usr/bin/lld - priority 80
Current `best' version is /usr/bin/lld.
$ ld --version
LLD 6.0.1 (compatible with GNU linkers)