[Cbe-oss-dev] Debugging the PS3 cell processor

[Andrew Pinski]

On 6/2/07, Dave B. Sharp <daveb_sharp at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> Hello there,
>   I'm doing a graduate project at the University of
> Ottawa based on the Playstation 3. I have been trying
> for the past month or so to come up with some sort of
> practical debugging solution given the heterogeneous
> multi-processor nature of the Cell, so I can move on
> the real part of the project. Ideally I would like a
> solution such as kgdb but have not had any success
> trying to patch a PS3 kernel for this purpose or find
> anyone that has done so. Could you tell me if such a
> solution exists; if not what approach has been used
> for debugging a Cell processor?

I think the gdb in the Cell SDK 2.1 has this thing called the combined
debugger and it supports debugging both SPU and PPU code at the same
time and each act like another thread (just like thread debugging).  I
do know the combined debugger is being worked on actively already.
Also there is always "printf" style debugging if you want to go that
route.

You can debug your SPU program seperate from your PPU program also using gdb.

Thanks,
Andrew Pinski