Basics of binutils ?

[John Smith <john dot maximus at gmail dot com>]

Hi,
    I am new to embedded Linux Development.

    I am totally confused about binutils.


   I have a few questions:

     1) What are these binutils ?.  Executables or Sources ?.


     2) If it is Executables ; how can they run in my system (Arch may
be different for different users)

             Target I understand; These utilities (compiler, linker,
asm) run on "My System" but produce executables which can run on
Target System.

     But how can u give executables when u dont know what is the
system (Processor) i am using ?.


  3) If it is sources ; then please correct me if i am wrong.

      u give source files say BinUtils.c

      I compile BinUtils.c using my compiler to get the
BinaryUtilities Which i will be using to generate cross-compiler,
cross-linker and so on.

   Am i Right.


   Please Advice.



Regards,
Maximus