RTEMS 4.6.99.3 On-Line Library

Building the GNU Debugger GDB

Getting Started with RTEMS

4.2: Building the GNU Debugger GDB

Obtain Source and Patches for GDB

Unarchiving the GDB Distribution

Applying RTEMS Patch to GDB

Compiling and Installing the GNU Debugger GDB

NOTE: This step is NOT required if prebuilt executables for the GNU Debugger GDB were installed.

The GNU Debugger GDB supports many configurations but requires some means of communicating between the host computer and target board. This communication can be via a serial port, Ethernet, BDM, or ROM emulator. The communication protocol can be the GDB remote protocol or GDB can talk directly to a ROM monitor. This setup is target board specific. The following configurations have been successfully used with RTEMS applications:

BDM with ColdFire, 683xx, MPC860 CPUs
Motorola Mxxxbug found on M68xxx VME boards
Motorola PPCbug found on PowerPC VME, CompactPCI, and MTX boards
ARM based Cogent EDP7312
PC's using various Intel and AMD CPUs including i386, i486, Pentium and above, and Athlon
PowerPC Instruction Simulator in GDB (PSIM)
MIPS Instruction Simulator in GDB (JMR3904)
Sparc Instruction Simulator in GDB (SIS)
Sparc Instruction Simulator (TSIM)
DINK32 on various PowerPC boards

GDB is currently RTEMS thread/task aware only if you are using the remote debugging support via Ethernet. These are configured using gdb targets of the form CPU-RTEMS. Note the capital RTEMS.

It is recommended that when toolset binaries are available for your particular host, that they be used. Prebuilt binaries are much easier to install but in the case of gdb may or may not include support for your particular target board.

Getting Started with RTEMS