Upgrade from gcc 4.2.1 for arm7tdmi target

We have been using gcc 4.2.1 to compile for our arm7tdmi target and would like to upgrade. We've been stuck on Fedora 8 and are trying to move to Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty). I have installed the toolchain from the ppa, but continue to have _many_ undefined library references.

From the README file in the gcc-4.9.3.2014q4.orig.tar.bz2 pack I've concluded that in addition to installing from the ppa, I'll need to build a newlib for my particular target. Thus far the exact procedure for doing so has eluded me.

My questions are:

1) The compiler from the ppa appears to compile fine when I specify "-mthumb -mcpu=arm7tdmi -mthumb-interwork". Is my expectation that I do NOT have to rebuild the compiler correct?

2) In the procedure for building newlib, I'm uncertain how to apply the -mcpu parameter. Since there doesn't seem to be place for that in the configure script, I'm at a loss as to how to do it. I'm assuming that a brute force edit of the Makefile is inappropriate. I am unclear on the steps that were used to generate the various /usr/arm-none-eabi/lib/arm* libraries. Thus my question is "How do I do it?"

3) Our old configuration utilized uClibc and uClibc++. My hope is that newlib-nano will meet our needs. Any information you might have on that transition would be most appreciated.

TIA