Re: [arm-gnu] Host requirements to build arm-2010q1 lite version

[Mark Mitchell <mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

trisha yad wrote:

> I have simple question,Is there any dependency of cross tool chain
> development on Host Environment like GCC or kernel version ?

Yes.

This is part of what's hard about building a high-quality toolchain;
variations in the compilers and host environment you use to compile the
toolchain itself will impact its quality, its compile-time performance,
and, in some cases, even what features it support.  (The latter occurs
because of feature tests that are performed during the configuration
process for the cross compiler; it can get confused about what features
other tools in the build process support.)

It's not simply a matter of saying "using GCC 4.4.x to build".  The
problem with version numbers for open-source software in general and GCC
in particular is that they are not that meaningful.  When you get
Windows 7 Build 1234 from Microsoft, or RHEL 6 from Red Hat, or Sourcery
G++ 4.4-128 from CodeSourcery you're getting a particular binary.  It
will behave the same on a wide variety of systems.  But, when you just
get "GCC 4.4.1", that's not at all the same.  Differences in
configuration options provided when building the compiler, patches
applied to the base FSF GCC 4.4.1 release, and so forth impact what you get.

CodeSourcery uses its own toolchain products to build its releases; for
example, our Windows-hosted ARM-targeted cross compilers are built using
our commercial Linux-hosted Windows-targeted cross toolchains (Sourcery
G++ for IA32 Windows).  We carefully archive all of the build tools used
in the process and control the build environment so that we can go back
and reproduce the builds we've made several years later, in case a
customer needs us to fix a problem, or add a feature, to an old release.

As a general rule, I feel that far too many people build open-source
software.  CodeSourcery tries hard *not* to build open-source software.
 The software on our internal systems are provided by the good folks at
Red Hat, Canonical, and other similar Linux distributors, and our
general policy is to avoid rebuilding any packages they provide.  We
can't add value by rebuilding; these suppliers are experts, and they
provide us with very high-quality bits.  The source code is an insurance
policy, there if we need it, but that's it.

-- 
Mark Mitchell
CodeSourcery
mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(650) 331-3385 x713