Newbie: ARM cross compiler GCC

[Kai Ruottu]

F. Fennek wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I am trying to build a cross compiler for a cortex M3 ARM target on a
> Linux host.
>   

You should also know your target a little better, the CPU, 'arm',  and 
its variation, 'Cortex M3',
are telling quite the same as 'i486' would tell in the x86 world.  So 
something like "ARM-XYZ with
Linux', 'ARM-XYZ with NetBSD', 'ARM-XYZ with Symbian', 'ARM-XYZ with 
bare monitor
on an evaluation board' etc. could be that understandable '$target' type.

> And I have a rather basic question.
> If I google on ARM toolchain I find a lot of help BUT most toolchain
> builders are scripts and most of them use patches of some sort.
> The scripts (or work flow) are mostly explained rather good but where
> the used patches come from are never explained.
> So my question is:
> Do I need patches to build an ARM cross compiler when I use the GCC source code?
>   

"Don't fix it if it ain't broken!"  This rule would be quite useful, any 
extra patches would try to
fix something. 

The usual 'arm-linux-gnu', 'arm-linux-gnueabi' and 'arm-elf' targets 
shouldn't require any extra
patches, don't know about special targets like 'arm-symbianelf', 
'arm-wince' etc.