Re: [avr-gcc-list] AVaRICE and gdb windows port

[E. Weddington]

On 21 Feb 2003 at 8:39, David Brown wrote:

> 
> Cygwin provides a posix api for programs running under windows, which
> takes a lot of the effort out of such a port.  I think I read
> somewhere that the most recent versions of Cygwin support /dev/tty
> addressing for serial ports - even before that, the actual serial port
> handling was the same, and it was just the addressing and openning of
> the port that had to be changed. The socket side of the program should
> be identical, as should the main part of the program.  Of course, it
> all depends on someone who has a fair understanding of the program
> also having a an understanding of porting to cygwin so that they can
> get the details right.  I've fiddled a bit with ported programs (like
> the equivilent program for the msp430), but my knowledge is limited to
> having an idea of what is possible rather than an understanding of how
> to do it (I use python for cross-platform programming).

FYI, I provide the WinAVR distribution of the open source toolset for 
AVR software development for Windows. So I've built binutils, GCC, 
and avr-libc under MinGW; I've also built SRecord under Cygwin, and 
am doing some other stuff under Cygwin. WinAVR:
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/winavr>

 
> >
> > > avr-gdb is probably already working under windows (I haven't
> > > tried it yet, since I could not get avarice to compile), given
> > > that there are lots of other gdb's running under windows.
> >
> > AFAIK, it isn't working under windows.
> 
> As I said, I haven't tried it yet - but do you know that it doesn't
> work, or is it just that few people have tried it?

Actually I misspoke and David Gay corrected me on this list. It *can* 
be built under Cygwin and there is an AVR target provided. However, I 
don't know if a Windows executable is provided at his nescc project. 
I haven't gotten around to building GDB for Windows because either 
SimulAVR is required or AVaRICE is required to work with it. Up until 
now, I haven't heard much requests for either one, though I would 
eventually like to build up all 3 and include them (as binaries) in 
the WinAVR project.
 
> I am not looking for simulation (although that might be interesting
> for the future), I am looking for in-circuit debugging.  As far as I
> understand it, that means running gdb, connected (via a tcp/ip socket)
> to AVaRICE, which connects to the jtag debugger hardware via a serial
> port.  This is exactly the arrangement I use for the msp430 (replacing
> "AVaRICE" with "rproxy" and "serial port" with "parallel port").

I've taken a look around the msp430 project on SourceForge. That 
project and WinAVR seem to be trying to do a lot of similar things. 
Though WinAVR doesn't seem to have the number of tools that msp430 
has, yet.

Right now WinAVR includes:
1. binutils
2. GCC (C, C++)
3. avr-libc (Standard C library)
4. objtool (ELF to COFF converter)
5. Programmers Notepad 2 (editor)
6. Unix / GNU utilities for Windows
7. Sample stuff (makefile and batch files)
8. Lots of documentation.

So this provides the tools to edit, compile, assemble, link, and do 
some file conversions. There are still other tools that would be 
usefull to add to the set for more completeness and other 
improvements to it as well.

Some future directions for WinAVR:

1. Programmers Notepad 2 will soon provide the ability to call 
command-line tools, i.e. become an IDE.

2. Right now there is a big hole concerning debugging / simulating. 
There are a couple of different directions for this mainly having to 
do with converting ELF to AVR Extended COFF that way Atmel's AVR 
Studio can be used for debugging / simulating. Hopefully in the near 
future there will be some improvements in this area.

3. Add open source programmer software. This is coming along nicely. 
And I would really like to include this in the next release of WinAVR 
(schedule allowing). :-)

4. Add open source software for ICE.

5. Add the SRecord utilities. These are general purpose utilities for 
manipulating load files such as Intel Hex, Motorola S-Record, raw 
binary, etc. 

6. Any other open source projects that would be useful for the AVR 
users community.

The above list is by no means in order of priority. Though right now 
my current priorities are a better solution for debugging / 
simulating and programmer software.

And before people get worried about how big the WinAVR package is 
going to get, I know that the open source installer package that I 
use to build the WinAVR installation will be adding (at some point) a 
new compression method that should show significantly more 
compression. :-)

All of these projects are open-source and run by volunteers. Any help 
on any of these projects is certainly appreciated. There is a list of 
these projects with their web URLs in the README.txt file that comes 
with WinAVR.

Eric