While gcc 7.3 is the default on Ubuntu, gcc 8.1 is available.  To use 8.1 put the following in your .bashrc file or otherwise set the variable CC = gcc-8: 

     export CC=”gcc-8″

     This will cause gcc-8 to automatically be used by most compile scripts.

     There are those who say 8.1 is still experimental, this may be but I compiled apache with it and it has been running stable for months.  Apache is a pretty good compiler stress test.

     The code that gcc-8 generates is significantly smaller and faster than gcc 7.3 which is the default.

     At present this is available on ubuntu.eskimo.com only.