Vaclav Peroutka wrote:

> I plan to experiment with two ARM families - ARM7TDMI and Cortex-M3. Do
> I need to compile (on Linux) gcc 4.3.4 twice and install one toolchain
> for ARM7TDMI and second toolchain for Cortex-M3 ?
Not needed, one with the appropriate settings will do.

There is also no need to build the toolchain yourself
(1) http://www.codesourcery.com/sgpp/lite/arm
(2) Downloads
(3) Target OS EABI
(4) GNU Linux installer

> Or can I have just single toolchain for both families ?
Yes.

> I noticed that in some build scripts there is '-mcpu' parameter...
The multilib settings are important.

> Should I build the toolchain for arm-elf, or for arm-eabi ?
I suggest to use eabi but from the user-side there are just a few 
differences.

Hello Martin,

Martin Thomas wrote:
>
> There is also no need to build the toolchain yourself
> (1) http://www.codesourcery.com/sgpp/lite/arm

is there any disadvantage to use code sourcery toolchain ?

Vaclav Peroutka wrote:
> Hello Martin,
>
> Martin Thomas wrote:
>>
>> There is also no need to build the toolchain yourself
>> (1) http://www.codesourcery.com/sgpp/lite/arm
>
> is there any disadvantage to use code sourcery toolchain ?

I'm using the CS G++ ARM EABI lite package since several releases (on 
Win32) to build code for different ARM7TDMI- and CM3-based controllers. 
Until know it offers everything I need from a cross-toolchain so I 
suspended building the tools myself. I have also recommended it to 
clients and received no complains so far. The lite-version is not 
limited in terms of code or binary size. It's basically the same as if 
you would build bintutils, gcc, newlib and gdb yourself but you don't 
need to twiddle with configuration-options and multilib-settings.

Codesourcery also offers limited free support for the lite-version in a 
web-forum. If you do commercial work and may need full support at some 
point you can buy it from CS. The Codesourcery-people know a lot about 
the toolchain's source-code and I'm sure they can help if it's urgent 
and you can't wait for help from the "community". I have never needed 
support urgently so far but some clients demanded that code I created 
for them must be buildable with tools for which they can get commercial 
support, maybe you are in the same situation. Ok, enough "advertising" 
for a free product from a company I do not work for. Just give it a try.

Sebastian wrote:
>
> is there any "free" compiler?
>
> Is there a version of Free (GNU, BSD,,, licenced) GCC or something like
> that?
>
Several listed in the resources sticky thread of this very forum: 
http://embdev.net/topic/129986. There is even a link given to one in 
this very thread that you hijacked to post you unrelated question!  You 
are not looking very hard. It is not good practice to post your question 
to someone else's thread.