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Is there an open source debugger for Stellaris?

customer said:

Distribution FAE said:

Do you know of a good Open Source Debugger for Stellaris?

How closely does GDB or OpenOCD or the summon arm toolchain described here meet your requirements?

Matthew Kendall - (Free) Stellaris Toolchain
Programming the Stellaris Launchpad with GNU/Linux
Debugging the Stellaris with OpenOCD

  • The debugger always seems to be the "missing link" in the so-called "free", Open-source tools.

    All the components seem to exist, but it always seems to be a matter of downloading a bit from here, a driver from there, applying a patch from elsewhere, trawling forums for instructions and the "magic tip" Mr X, etc, etc, etc,...

    For a commercial project, the customer should seriously consider how the cost of all this compares to the cost of a "ready-to-go" commercial toolchain such as CCS, Keil, IAR, et al.

    Even for the ones offering a "free" Eclipse IDE and GCC build tools, it's the debugger that you pay for.

    It has been said that Open-Source is only "free" if you don't value your time...

     

  • Hi,

    I have used the following packages/plug-ins on Windows Vista/W7 and Mac OSX 10.7 without any major problems (some minor ones, easily to overcome) . I have chosen the easy way - installing ready-made binaries, not compiling from sources.

    • Eclipse CDT C/C++ IDE
    • http://www.yagarto.de - for Windows and Mac
    • CodeSourcery Lite for Windows;
    • http://www.carlson-minot.com for Mac OSX - they provide ready-made binaries from  CodeSourcery (Lite version)
    • GNU ARM Tools from sf.net for managed make projects on Eclipse. Good because gives you the settings for tool chain used and ARM/Cortex microcontroller version, A small minor problem in generating binary from its settings, but used a post-processing command in Eclipse to do it right.
    • OpenOCD - with Cortex-M3; now available as source from git also for ti-icdi interface (Cortex-M4, LaunchPad)
    • Embedded Registers View (sourceforge.net/projects/embsysregview/) for viewing the registers content.

    A small comment about the generated code: for Debug version yagarto generates a little more code (+~1K) than CodeSourcery, but seems to be a little more easy to debug with. On Release version, the differences are insignificant (~10-15 bytes).Tested on the same project.

    The debugging was done from Eclipse, not command line.

    Tested also lmflash from lm4tools on Mac - works OK. Not tested lmicdi; while compiling OK, seems not complete - missing a gdb checksum routine - just searching the gdb source code for finding a solution.

    Petrei

  • I have to ask a serious question here... If you are using the TI Stellaris product line why are you attempting to use some open source tool chain that you need to integrate and support yourself?

    My understanding is that as long as you are developing for the Stellaris MCU product family and you have a TI launchpad board connected (or the TI USB debug pod) that the use of the TI Code Composer Studio (CCS) is free.

    What am I missing here?

    Michael Karas

  • Hi,

    Good question indeed - I use CCS at the office for production, and the free tools at home for my own research and most important, it is a second compiler at hand. In the past I had some problems with other brand compilers, generating wrong code or errors, and the only solution to overcome these was to use another compiler and see the result. At that times this was an advice from other more experienced professionals and proved to be very useful, so I recommend also to others. Good also to check/develop first non-hardware related algorithms like FFT.

    Regards,

    Petrei

  • Hello Petrei

    Can you please document and upload the procedure to do it on windows. I would also like to see integration of stellarisware is possible. 

    I would request you to please show a simple led blink example.

    Thanks for your time.

  • Hi,

    I have seen your request and I will prepare a document with all the links for windows - but please be patient since it will take one day - I have to renew some changed links.

    Petrei

  • Thank you sir,

    There is a small request. If you can add a small explanation to every step (Why to do any of that) would actually be more helpful. 

    Looking forward for it.

  • Hi,

    I understand, but I will need more time, expect the end of this week, many changes since the original post..

    Petrei

  • I'm sure OP will come through. Maybe tomorrow.