arm gcc toolchain as arm-elf or arm-none-eabi, what is the difference?

Question

When you build a gcc toolchain there is the possibility to build it as arm-elf or as arm-none-eabi, but what is the difference?

I use the eabi today, but that is just since everyone else seem to do that... but since that is a really bad argument, it would be really nice to understand the difference.

Note: This toolchain will crosscompile code for Cortex-M3 based mcu:s like the stm32.

Thanks

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Some links:

EABI:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_binary_interface
• http://infocenter.arm.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.arm.doc.subset.swdev.abi/index.html

ELF:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_and_Linkable_Format

Answer 1

Here is an excellent explanation.

Toolchains follow the loose naming convention: arch [-vendor] [-os] -eabi

  arch    refers to target architecture (which in our case is ARM)
  vendor  refers to toolchain supplier
  os      refers to the target operating system
  eabi    refers to Embedded Application Binary Interface

Some examples:

arm-none-eabi: This toolchain targets the ARM architecture, has no vendor, does not target any operating system, and complies with the ARM EABI.

arm-none-linux-gnueabi: This toolchain targets the ARM architecture, has no vendor, creates binaries that run on the Linux operating system, and uses the GNU EABI. It is used to target ARM-based Linux systems.