I've found a company that provides GCC based toolchains for ARM, MIPS but I don't know in what are they different from the vanilla GCC, of course, they bring other software pieces such as Eclipse, but when looking only at GCC and Binutils, are they different or just the same?
+2
A:
One big difference between a pre-compiled toolchain (like those provided by Code Sourcery, MontaVista, Wind River, etc) and one built from source is convenience. Building a toolchain from scratch, especially for cross-compiling purposes, is tedious and can be a complete pain. Also, the newest versions of glibc (or uClibc), gcc, and binutils aren’t always compatible as they're developed independently. There are open source tools to make this process easier (like crosstool-NG), but having a proven toolchain that’s been optimized for a certain platform can save a lot of time and headaches. This is especially true at the beginning of a new project. It also helps to have technical support when things go screwy. Of course…you have to pay for it most of the time.
That being said, compiling your own toolchain will most likely save you money and can allow more flexibility down the road. MontaVista, as far as I know, doesn’t include support for older platforms in their newest toolchain releases. For example, if you bought MontaVista Pro 4.X and it included a toolchain with gcc 3.3.X, that’s the toolchain you’re most likely going to be stuck with for the life of your project. Upgrading to a toolchain with gcc 4.X most likely wouldn’t be an option.
Hope that helps.
Erik Bolton
2009-01-04 10:44:31