GDB for ppc-64

[Anton Blanchard]

Hi Paul,

Best to cc linuxppc64-dev at lists.linuxppc.org, most of the kernel guys
are on that list.

> My job is to make sure that GDB runs on ppc-64 linux at least as well as
> it runs on the intel chips under linux, if not better.

Excellent :)

> I am asking you all for help:
> 1)      Do you know any areas in GDB/ppc-64 that needs attention?  I have
> some idea, but I would like your 'take'.

A number of things spring to mind. Last time I looked through the ppc32
gdb it was using a mix of new and old interfaces. It seemed like a rewrite
of the ppc32 parts would be a good idea. Is the ppc64 code based on the
existing ppc32 bits?

Also there are areas where we could cooperate with gdb to make life
easier. The code to detect signal trampolines in gdb is pretty scary
(checking for li r0,7777; sc or li r0,NR_SIGRETURN, sc etc). The kernel
should really be providing some debug information around the signal
trampoline which gdb could parse. I think the x86 signal trampoline
code does this in 2.6.

If you come up against other things where it really makes sense to fix
the kernel, come hassle us.

While its not strictly gdb, getting kgdb to work on ppc64 would be
nice. Longer term we should also put more debug information into the
kernel to make kgdb work better (eg understanding some of our asm code).

PS: Is ppc64 gdb merged into upstream yet?

Anton

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