Messages in this thread | | | From | Nick Piggin <> | Subject | Re: [ANNOUNCE] Merkey's Kernel Debugger | Date | Wed, 6 Aug 2008 15:50:22 +1000 |
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On Wednesday 06 August 2008 13:08, Andi Kleen wrote: > Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au> writes: > > Seriously? Because it doesn't seem to have had enough peer review, > > it hasn't had widespread testing in somewhere like linux-next or > > -mm, and we already have kgdb so you have to also explain why you > > can't improve kgdb in the areas it trails mdb. > > > > But the ideal outcome would be if you could contribute patches to > > kgdb to the point where it is as good as mdb. It is already in the > > I don't think kgdb and a simple assembler debugger > are directly comparable. kgdb always requires a remote machine, > which has many advantages, but is also often very inconvenient > or impossible to arrange. An low overhead assembler debugger > can be always compiled in just in case. > > Also at least for the x86 port the debugger interfaces should > be general enough now (see die hooks as a "debug vfs") that it would > be quite possible to have a multitude of debuggers just using > them. In fact that's already the cases, kprobes and kgdb and > kdump are all kinds of debuggers using such hooks. > > As long as it doesn't impact the core code and the mdb > code itself is considered merge worthy and has clean interfaces > that would seem fine to me.It essentially would just live somewhere in > its own directory using the existing interfaces. My standard > test for seeing if a debugger has clean interfaces is to see > if it can be loaded as a module. > > There are enough different debugging styles around that offering > developers different tools of which they can pick whatever suits > them is not a bad idea. Also as everyone knows debugging > is often a major time eater and if more tools are available that > can only help the kernel. > > That said I haven't read the mdb code, not judging on its general > merge-worthiness or am really completely sure what are all the details > of a "netware style debugger", just a general high level comment on > debuggers. At least judging based on the patch sizes it at least > doesn't seem particularly bloated. But of course it would need full > proper review first.
OK thanks for the info. I don't actually know debugger code as I said, so I wasn't against merging mdb if it offers things that kgdb fundamentally cannot.
If so, then ensuring clean interfaces indeed would seem like a good first step to getting it merged.
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