Question

Why doesn't Sourcery CodeBench Lite Edition contain libraries for big-endian GNU/Linux? Or for systems with VFP or NEON?

Answer

The contents of Sourcery CodeBench Lite Edition are agreed by ARM, Ltd. and CodeSourcery.

Sourcery CodeBench Lite Edition can be used to build applications the use VFP and/or NEON instructions. While the Lite-edition libraries have not been optimized for VFP/NEON, the application itself can be optimized for these architecture variants and linked with the Lite run-time libraries, provided the Application Binary Interface (ABI) used by the application is compatible with the ABI of the Lite run-time libraries. The linker will refuse to link incompatible objects. Using a run-time optimized specifically for VFP/NEON only offers a performance advantage for applications that make heavy use of mathematical functions, such as cos.

Sourcery CodeBench Professional and Standard Editions provide add-on run-time libraries optimized for VFP and NEON, as well as libraries for big-endian systems.