[yocto] Need clarification on some terms

[Paul D. DeRocco]

I'm trying a second time to see if I can learn this system. Section 3.4
contains a short glossary which explains some things and seems to obscure
others. So perhaps someone can clear up a few simple things.

"Cross-Development Toolchain: A collection of software development tools and
utilities that allow you to develop software for targeted architectures." Is
that different from the toolchain that bitbake builds in the beginning, and
then uses to build the image? If so, what is it?

"Following is a list of toolchain recipes..." This is followed by
gcc-cross-initial, gcc-cross-intermediate, gcc-cross. All three of these
things say that the toolchain runs on the host and is used to build software
for the target. So why are there three of them? What are the differences
among them? It also says that each one is a "native" package. In my
experience, a "native" toolchain has always meant a toolchain that produces
code for the same machine that the toolchain runs on, while a "cross"
toolchain produces code for a different machine. That's obviously not what
"native" means in this context, so what does it mean?

The documentation makes frequent references to "the SDK" without ever
defining it. I know what it means generically, but what is it in the Yocto
context? And why does the SDK involve yet another set of three toolchains?
(Oh, and why is one of them called "canadian"?)

-- 

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco at ix.netcom.com