A cross-compiler toolchain is convenient for compiling executables on a host different than the target. The host is the system you run the compiler on; the target is what the resulting executables will run on.
Information and instructions for building your own arm-linux toolchain can be found a few places:
This pre-built toolchain will allow you to compile programs for arm-linux (e.g. the empeg) under any libc6 i386-linux host. The compressed tar file is about 26MB in size. It contains binutils 2.9.1.0.25, a patched egcs 1.1.2, and glibc 2.1.1.
To intall, create a directory /usr/local/arm on your host
system. You can put the toolchain somewhere else if you like, but you must
link /usr/local/arm to your alternate location or the compiler
won't be able to find all of its pieces.
Unpack the toolchain tar file inside /usr/local/arm. The
total uncompressed size is approximately 107MB.
You can now use the compiler and other tools by prefixing the directory
/usr/local/arm/arm-linux/bin to your PATH, or by
using the programs in /usr/local/arm/bin. You might want to
create a wrapper script such as this:
#! /bin/sh PATH="/usr/local/arm/arm-linux/bin:$PATH" exec "$@"
Name this script arm and you can cross-compile programs at
your convenience without leaving the cross-compiler permanently in your
PATH, like this:
% arm make