[avr-gcc-list] RE: avr-gcc-list Digest, Vol 6, Issue 10

[Dafni & Robert Berger]

Hi all,
I had a long way to go to find a good debugging environment for avr.
I am using both Windoze and Linux for my development.
If took me a couple of weeks to figure out, that the latest WinAVR (also
with beta patches) corrupts your code in the elf to coff conversion.
I have some code where the following happens:
Objtool         debug symbols, but corrupted code with AVR Studio
Avr-objcopy     debug symbols, but corrupted code with AVR Studio
Elfcoff         no debug symbols, but code O.K.
So I am using avarice - avr-gdb - gvd on both Windoze and Linux (and
obviously a jtag ICE).
On Linux I am using the snapshots from
http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/avr-libc/snapshots/
Plus gdb and avarice from
http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/simulavr/binaries/RPMS/i386/
The debugging stuff is a bit outdated and simulavr, which can also be found
there is not very functional.
On Windows, as already mentioned the latest WinAVR plus beta patches.
I would wish, that Ted updates his gdb, avarice, simulavr rpms, since I
don't like to build from sources, since I might make mistakes and can't ask
anything then on the list, sine it's my own cook up.
That's why I use WinAvr and Ted's rpms as a reference.
Now the biggest drawback not using AvrStudio is, that you loose a nice (and
in the latest version of AVR Studio also mainly working) simulator. In my
experiments it exhibits exactly the same behavior as running with the
JTAG-ICE on the actual hardware, which is pretty neat.
Also you have a way to see special function registers in AVR Studio easier
than with gdb and you have a menu to set the fuse bits e.g. for an AtMega128
to behave like an AtMega103.
As a bottom line, you don't really loose much (expect for a nice simulator)
and can use the latest toolchain and still see debug symbol without
corrupted code using gnu tools only.
So if you do have a JTAG-ICE, I recommend gdb - gvd on Windoze and gdb -
whatever you like on Linux. If you don't get one and use gdb - gvd on
Windoze and gdb - whatever you like on Linux .
Regards,
Robert

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 18:53:00 +1200 (NZST)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Ewout?= <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden
Subject: [avr-gcc-list] debug environment questions
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Hi all,

I would like to hear others' opinions on how they
preferably would set up a debug environment for the
AVR.

I developed a software package on a different
architecture and am porting it to the AVR. I ordered
the stk-500 board plus the JTAG ICE to do this. The
question I have, is it worth to use AVR studio that
comes with the stk-500 kit? I've heard some good/bad
news about it, mainly about problems with the COFF
file format.

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.

Ewout Boks


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