Re: GDB - do we dare?

On Sat, Jul 12, 2003 at 01:05:00PM +0200, Mark Kettenis wrote:
> 
>    o  We still have the Alpha gdb -k bug moved over from the 5.1 todo
>       list to the 5.2 todo list. I think this is "just" a bug fix.
> 
> I'm not really familliar with the support for debugging FreeBSD
> kernels in GDB since that support is not in the FSF tree.  Is there
> any chance that this code will be contributed back?  This would
> involve a copyright assignment, which could prove to be a major
> obstacle.

The copyright of our kgdb support is already the FSF. See
/usr/src/gnu/usr.bin/binutils/gdb/kvm-fbsd.c

> The current support for debuggung libc_r-based threading is also not
> present in the FSF tree.  So the question raised above applies here too.

It looks to me that it can be contributed back.

> I'm not really familiar with KSE, but AFAIK the kernel interfaces for
> debugging KSE's aren't there yet.

I think that's mostly due to a knowledge gap. We just need people who
can bridge between gdb and FreeBSD. Someone like you :-)

>    o  gdb(1) has created a 6.x branch, so it's likely that a new release
>       is in the pipeline (within 6 months?). Upgrading to 5.3 may make
>       a future upgrade easier due to smaller diffs and refreshed know-how.
> 
> GDB 6.0 will defenitely be released before the end of the year :-).
> We're aiming at the end of August, but it will probably be somewhere
> in September.

Interesting. It may even be possible to make gdb 6.0 part of FreeBSD 5.2
scheduling wise. Do we need a binutils update? We now have 2.13.2.

> A1 If having support for amd64 is a major reason for doing a new
>    import of GDB, importing the upcoming GDB 6.0 would make more sense
>    to me.

No ia64 is the major reason :-)

> A2 I'm volunteering to help out here.

Cool, thanks. Shall we just create a p4 branch and start hacking?

>    better on FreeBSD/i386 and FreeBSD/Alpha now.  Now that I've got it
>    working on FreeBSD/amd64, I'll give FreeBSD/ia64 a shot.

We probably need to talk then, because the ptrace interface needs
to be fleshed out and I planned to do that while porting gdb.

-- 
 Marcel Moolenaar	  USPA: A-39004		 marcel_at_xcllnt.net