Debugging Embedded Linux Systems with GDB

For Linux, it doesnt matter if a program is being run on a server, on a desktop system or on an embedded device. The tools and interfaces are always the same. This portability is one of the key facto …

For Linux, it doesn’t matter if a program is being run on a server, on a desktop system or on an embedded device. The tools and interfaces are always the same. This portability is one of the key factors for the success of Linux in the industrial sector. But even though the software is portable and the developers are always using the same interfaces, there are special requirements when it comes to embedded software. Most importantly: A program is usually not being developed on the system where it runs on. Therefore we need to generate code for different architectures and (since software always comes with bugs) we need to be able to debug software which is running on a different system. GDB can deal with that situation. It can help you to remote debug a program or to analyze a core file which has been generated on a different system, even if it’s a completely different CPU architecture. This presentation gives an introduction on how to use GDB for debugging an Embedded Linux System.