Re: [avr-gcc-list] debug environment questions

[Joerg Wunsch]

Ewout <address@hidden> wrote:

> My main development system is FreeBSD with gcc and gdb running on
> it. I know I can hook up the ICE through avarice to gdb and I would
> prefer that since I am familiar with the GNU toolchain. However, if
> AVR Studio has a important features that I would miss out on, I
> would use that.

Just MHO (*): stick with the GNU toolchain.  You couldn't even get AVR
Studio to run within Wine.  VMLAB runs under Wine, but it also has the
problems of the COFF file format, and it currently doesn't support the
features of the AVR »extended« COFF (struct/array debugging).  OTOH,
it has a superior simulation environment if this is any help for you.

(*) Of course, i'm biased.  I maintain the FreeBSD ports of the AVR
opensource toolchain. ;-)

For the JTAG ICE with the latest firmware, you need avarice from CVS.
Sorry, i just got my own JTAG ICE finished a couple of days ago, so i
didn't prepare a FreeBSD port of avarice so far, sorry.  If you prefer
i could perhaps make one within the next few days.  (SourceForge's
anonymous CVS access sucks big rocks most of the time.)

Also, i remember a remark from Ted Roth that you should use the latest
GDB for AVR these days, since he committed a number of fixes to GDB's
CVS.  Perhaps time to upgrade the avr-gdb FreeBSD port as well...

The above opinion assumes that you're already quite familiar with
using GDB, and either don't mind using its CLI, or do have some
frontend for it (Emacs gud-mode, or a graphical frontend like DDD).

The FreeBSD port of avr-binutils doesn't have the avr-coff-beta patch
applied, just FYI.  However, it should be simple for you to fetch it,
drop it in the /usr/ports/devel/avr-binutils/files directory, using
any name that starts with "patch-", and recompile the port yourself.
Just in case you're interested to produce AVR COFF files on FreeBSD...
-- 
J"org Wunsch                                           Unix support engineer
address@hidden        http://www.interface-systems.de/~j/