Difference between arm-none-eabi and arm-linux-gnueabi?

ChrsBr picture ChrsBr · Aug 15, 2016 · Viewed 8.1k times · Source

What is the difference between arm-none-eabi and arm-linux-gnueabi? I know the difference in how to use them (one for bare metal software, the other one for software meant to be run on linux). But what is the technical background?

I see there is a difference in the ABI which is, as far as I understood, something like an API but on binary level. It ensures interoperability of different applications.

But I don't really understand in which way having or not having an operating system affects my toolchain. The only thing that came to my mind is, that libraries maybe have to be statically linked (do they?) while compiling bare metal software, because there is no os dynamically providing them.

The most pages I found related to this toppic just answered how to use the toolchains but not the technical background. I'm a student of mechatronics and new to embedded systems, so my experience in this field is somewhat limited.

Answer

FlorianB picture FlorianB · Aug 17, 2016

Maybe this link to a description will help.

Probably the biggest difference:

"The bare-metal ABI will assume a different C library (newlib for example, or even no C library) to the Linux ABI (which assumes glibc). Therefore, the compiler may make different function calls depending on what it believes is available above and beyond the Standard C library."