Microsoft Adds GCC ARM Cross-Compilation Support To Visual Studio

Microsoft's latest addition to Visual Studio 2017 15.5 is quite surprising: support for cross-compiling to ARM targets using the GCC compiler.

If enabling Linux development with C++ beginning in VS 2017 15.5 Preview 2, there is the ability to cross-compile targeting ARM. This is currently catering towards ARM microcontrollers for embedded/IoT use-cases. Though it shouldn't be a stretch and with some wrangling to get this support working for other ARM Linux targets.

This support should work with "any board supported by the [GCC] compiler." Microsoft is also working on adding debugging support for this configuration into a future Visual Studio update.

More details on this new feature and how to make use of it via the Visual Studio MSDN blog.