Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Wed, 6 Sep 2000 14:36:48 -0700 (PDT) | From | Linus Torvalds <> | Subject | Re: Availability of kdb |
| |
On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Dan Hollis wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Alan Cox wrote: > > For things like driver debugging its the only way to work. Hardware simply does > > not work like the manual says and no amount of Zen contemplation will ever > > make you at one with a 3c905B ethernet card. > > This is probably the best argument for a kernel debugger. > > Adding debug code (printk, if/then/BUG() etc) to track down a driver bug > sometimes changes behaviour enough to turn it into a heisenbug. In these > cases a kernel debugger is the best way to swat it.
Ehh? And exactly _how_ would a debugger help it.
Especially as Alan quoted an example of a driver bug that didn't get fixed for several months because the maintainer didn't have the hardware.
What would a debugger have done?
Are you _seriously_ expecting that non-programmers start using kernel debuggers to send in good bug-reports? Grow up, get a clue, and smell the roses. Not going to happen. Especially as a kernel debugger tends to require a second machine, and even then you only get to break automatically on events that would have caused a kernel oops anyway.
Otherwise you need to know a hell of a lot more, like setting breakpoints etc.
Testing is important for device drivers. Debuggers are not.
Linus
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
|  |