Toolchains have a loose name convention like arch[-vendor][-os]-abi.
arch is for architecture: arm, mips, x86, i686...
vendor is tool chain supplier: apple,
os is for operating system: linux, none (bare metal)
abi is for application binary interface convention: eabi, gnueabi, gnueabihf
For your question, arm-none-linux-gnueabi and arm-linux-gnueabi is same thing. arm-linux-gcc is actually binary for gcc which produces objects for ARM architecture to be run on Linux with default configuration (abi) provided by toolchain.
This might be true, but really, there's not enough information to be sure. You need to know about the provenance of the toolchain. Non-"gnueabi" toolchains are probably quite rare, however. – ams Dec 10 '12 at 9:41
Are you talking about arm-linux-gcc? or can you clarify? – auselen Dec 10 '12 at 9:46
It's worth pointing out that tool-chains are configured with default header and library search paths. When cross-compiling, these should be pointing at the target image not the development machine's own headers and libraries. Thus you can easily end up with a compiler which reports its specification as arm-none-linux-gnueabi that actually compile with slightly different results. You can check this with gcc -print-sysroot – marko Dec 10 '12 at 9:50
@auselen: Yes, arm-linux seems ambiguous to me. I've not checked, and it might be that in current gcc that's a synonym, but I'll bet it's meant something different in the past. Besides, the triplet only specifies the default config, and the toolchain could have been built with other settings enabled; in that case, I would choose the generic triplet rather than have it lie. – ams Dec 10 '12 at 9:55
@ams if I understand you correctly, you say arm-linux-gcc executes default settings as toolchain have been built. yes you are definitively right. – auselen Dec 10 '12 at 9:58