RE: Angel not present

RE: Angel not present

[Daniel.Andersson]

Yes, you were right, i was running an old version on gdb. Now that i have
upgraded the gdb i can connect to the target (using "target rdi"), but only
with 9600. Is this some form of maximum using angel? Is it possible to
download a gdb stub so that i can increase the debugging speed, and if so,
how do i do that?

/Daniel

-----Original Message-----
From: Fernando Nasser [ mailto:fnasser@redhat.com ]
Sent: den 19 mars 2001 18:26
To: Andersson Daniel
Cc: insight@sourceware.cygnus.com
Subject: Re: Angel not present


Daniel.Andersson@combitechsystems.com wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I am trying to set up an environment where i am using GNU tools to develop
> my application. The problem is that i am using an ARM7TDMI board and the
> only stub that is available is the angel (not GDB). However, i want to
> connect the insight to the board using the angel protocol but it is not
> present in the "target" option. And the remote/serial does not work. Can I
> install support for the angel protocol or what should i do?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Daniel Andersson

You must be either:

1) Using a very old version of Insight+GDB

2) Do not have it configure as a cross-debugger for a arm-elf target.



-- 
Fernando Nasser
Red Hat Canada Ltd.                     E-Mail:  fnasser@redhat.com
2323 Yonge Street, Suite #300
Toronto, Ontario   M4P 2C9

RE: Angel not present

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

>Yes, you were right, i was running an old version on gdb. Now that i have
>upgraded the gdb i can connect to the target (using "target rdi"), but only
>with 9600. Is this some form of maximum using angel? Is it possible to
>download a gdb stub so that i can increase the debugging speed, and if so,

Angel will work at up to 115200bps (at least); I've _once or twice_ 
successfully connected at that speed. However it is not reliable above 
9600, at least not with gdb on the host end. You can try it, though getting 
a real gdb stub in there is preferable.

What board are you using? If it is a custom platform you will need to port 
your own gdb stub.

I have limited experience with Angel but my experience so far tells me it's 
very fragile.

=== Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (Embedded Engineer)
Work: http://www.digi-frame.com/
Personal: http://www.zws.com/ and http://www.larwe.com/

"Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein,
Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein."

Re: Angel not present

[Fernando Nasser]

Daniel.Andersson@combitechsystems.com wrote:
> 
> Yes, you were right, i was running an old version on gdb. Now that i have
> upgraded the gdb i can connect to the target (using "target rdi"), but only
> with 9600. Is this some form of maximum using angel? Is it possible to
> download a gdb stub so that i can increase the debugging speed, and if so,
> how do i do that?
> 

Daniel,

I use GDB with Angel almost every week, and I do so at 115200
(reliably).

A few known problems:

1) A bug in the ARM AEB board (used to sell at $150 -- now discontinued)
where the board disrespected the documented protocol and the client code
that ARM gave us and the board monitor did not properly raised the speed
(in RDI, it all starts at 9600 and them both switches to the higher
possible speed).  When we (someone from the net and I) tried to get a
fix from ARM they told us to buy the new development board ($250 -- out
of stock at the time).  

2) Old versions of Cygwin had a problem with the serial port.  The
higher the speed the higher the probability of this problem to manifest
itself.  When it happens, the communication stops.  Solution: get a
recent Cygwin.  This may be what Lewin is referring to.

3) GDB 5.0 (now very old) also had problems in ARM support.  If I am not
mistaken, the higher speeds were missing from the Target Selection
dialog.  We are having to recommend a recent GDB snapshot for whoever is
debugging ARM (specially with Angel) until GDB 5.1 is out.


Regards,
Fernando



-- 
Fernando Nasser
Red Hat Canada Ltd.                     E-Mail:  fnasser@redhat.com
2323 Yonge Street, Suite #300
Toronto, Ontario   M4P 2C9

Re: Angel not present

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

Hi Fernando,

>1) A bug in the ARM AEB board (used to sell at $150 -- now discontinued)
>where the board disrespected the documented protocol and the client code

I am informed that this is a long-standing bug in Angel. I am personally 
experiencing great fragility with the Atmel AT91EB40 board, so I know it's 
not limited to the firmware in the AEB. The Atmel kit seems to include 
Angel sources (haven't looked closely), so I guess I could try to fix it, 
but (see below) why bother...

>2) Old versions of Cygwin had a problem with the serial port.  The

I have observed this problem with Cygwin 1.1.8, which is the currently 
downloadable version. It can be alleviated a _little_ by disabling FIFOs on 
the host-side's serial port. However the debugging link is still very, very 
fragile, especially in Win9x.

Everything I have been told by other ARMers indicates that this is due to 
bugs in Angel. In fact, I haven't heard anyone with a positive word to say 
about Angel; Atmel FAEs, other embedded engineers... So once I get some 
spare time I will port gdb stubs to the EB40 (someone has already done an 
unsupported port to the AT91EB01 and the boards are almost identical).

>3) GDB 5.0 (now very old) also had problems in ARM support.  If I am not
>mistaken, the higher speeds were missing from the Target Selection
>dialog.  We are having to recommend a recent GDB snapshot for whoever is
>debugging ARM (specially with Angel) until GDB 5.1 is out.

I'll have to try that; I am currently using 5.0.

=== Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (Embedded Engineer)
Work: http://www.digi-frame.com/
Personal: http://www.zws.com/ and http://www.larwe.com/

"Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein,
Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein."

Re: Angel not present

[Fernando Nasser]

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" wrote:
> 
> >2) Old versions of Cygwin had a problem with the serial port.  The
> 
> I have observed this problem with Cygwin 1.1.8, which is the currently
> downloadable version. It can be alleviated a _little_ by disabling FIFOs on
> the host-side's serial port. However the debugging link is still very, very
> fragile, especially in Win9x.
> 

I have never seen this problem on recent Cygwins, but it maybe because I
use NT4.0 and Win2000.  Cygwin was designed (and it is only officially
supported) for NT (and has been upgraded to Win2000) so I have always
hearing about some little problems on Win9x machines.

My experience with Win9x was disastrous for everything else as well.  I
had a machine with the MS office stuff plus Quicken and some other off
the shelf Windows applications.  At least one crash and one reboot a
day.  Until I gave up and upgraded to NT.

-- 
Fernando Nasser
Red Hat Canada Ltd.                     E-Mail:  fnasser@redhat.com
2323 Yonge Street, Suite #300
Toronto, Ontario   M4P 2C9

Re: Angel not present

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

Hi Fernando,

> > >2) Old versions of Cygwin had a problem with the serial port.  The
> >
> > I have observed this problem with Cygwin 1.1.8, which is the currently
> > downloadable version. It can be alleviated a _little_ by disabling FIFOs on
> > the host-side's serial port. However the debugging link is still very, very
> > fragile, especially in Win9x.
>
>I have never seen this problem on recent Cygwins, but it maybe because I
>use NT4.0 and Win2000.  Cygwin was designed (and it is only officially

I am observing the problem _right now_ on this Win2000 system. It's not a 
Win9x-specific problem, though I surely do know there are many of those.

>My experience with Win9x was disastrous for everything else as well.  I
>had a machine with the MS office stuff plus Quicken and some other off
>the shelf Windows applications.  At least one crash and one reboot a
>day.  Until I gave up and upgraded to NT.

Well, we won't argue OS merits. However I will point out the issue that 
continues to annoy the hell out of me with cygwin and Win9x: I will only 
ever use cygwin for embedded development. So it is an embedded development 
environment. Yet many/most embedded toolchains, ICEs, etc don't work 
properly in NT (including Win2K). So I am left juggling OSs every time I 
want to burn an EPROM and so on. Not supporting Win9x (DOS+Windows type) 
technology in an embedded toolchain is very unfriendly.

If I have to juggle OSs anyway, I may as well juggle to Linux, which works 
about 1000% better for embedded dev than cygwin+NT (it's so much faster on 
builds, much more responsive to interrupts, cheaper, more reliable, roughly 
the same lack of support from embedded hardware vendors,...). So the 
justification for supporting a cygwin that doesn't work properly in 9x is 
pretty thin.

=== Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (Embedded Engineer)
Work: http://www.digi-frame.com/
Personal: http://www.zws.com/ and http://www.larwe.com/

"Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein,
Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein."

Re: Angel not present

[Fernando Nasser]

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" wrote:
> 
> Hi Fernando,
> 
> > > >2) Old versions of Cygwin had a problem with the serial port.  The
> > >
> > > I have observed this problem with Cygwin 1.1.8, which is the currently
> > > downloadable version. It can be alleviated a _little_ by disabling FIFOs on
> > > the host-side's serial port. However the debugging link is still very, very
> > > fragile, especially in Win9x.
> >
> >I have never seen this problem on recent Cygwins, but it maybe because I
> >use NT4.0 and Win2000.  Cygwin was designed (and it is only officially
> 
> I am observing the problem _right now_ on this Win2000 system. It's not a
> Win9x-specific problem, though I surely do know there are many of those.
> 

In this case, I think you should post a note to the Cygwin people.  They
may know about the problem or, if not, I am sure they want to be told
about it.

If you follow the Cygwin pointer at http://sources.redhat.com  you will
find their list address (I can't remember from the top of my head).



> >My experience with Win9x was disastrous for everything else as well.  I
> >had a machine with the MS office stuff plus Quicken and some other off
> >the shelf Windows applications.  At least one crash and one reboot a
> >day.  Until I gave up and upgraded to NT.
> 
> Well, we won't argue OS merits. However I will point out the issue that
> continues to annoy the hell out of me with cygwin and Win9x: I will only
> ever use cygwin for embedded development. So it is an embedded development
> environment. Yet many/most embedded toolchains, ICEs, etc don't work
> properly in NT (including Win2K). So I am left juggling OSs every time I
> want to burn an EPROM and so on. Not supporting Win9x (DOS+Windows type)
> technology in an embedded toolchain is very unfriendly.
> 

I never heard the "DOS" argument before.  It makes sense.  But I guess
it may become irrelevant -- Microsoft stopped selling Win9x altogether. 
It seems that there is no current way of buying it, just Millennium and
2000.

Anyway, I believe the "non-support" for Win9x was not a choice by the
Cygwin folks, but imposed by the limitations and bugs of Win9x.  But I
am not the right person to comment on this: again the Cygwin list would
be the appropriate forum to get some clarifications.


> If I have to juggle OSs anyway, I may as well juggle to Linux, which works
> about 1000% better for embedded dev than cygwin+NT (it's so much faster on
> builds, much more responsive to interrupts, cheaper, more reliable, roughly
> the same lack of support from embedded hardware vendors,...). So the
> justification for supporting a cygwin that doesn't work properly in 9x is
> pretty thin.
> 


I still don't understand why I don't see this problem.  We must have
some different setup somewhere.  I haven't done anything too heavy in
the 2000 machine though, only in the NT4.0 one.  Would it be some 2000
problem?  I think you should definitively post to the Cygwin list...



Regards,
Fernando



-- 
Fernando Nasser
Red Hat Canada Ltd.                     E-Mail:  fnasser@redhat.com
2323 Yonge Street, Suite #300
Toronto, Ontario   M4P 2C9

Re: Angel not present

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

Hi Fernando,

> > > > >2) Old versions of Cygwin had a problem with the serial port.  The
> > > >
> > > > I have observed this problem with Cygwin 1.1.8, which is the currently
> >
> > I am observing the problem _right now_ on this Win2000 system. It's not a
>
>In this case, I think you should post a note to the Cygwin people.  They

I don't believe it's a Cygwin problem, though. I am told, and believe, that 
it's an Angel bug.

If you happen to have an AT91EB40 there, try using it with gdb 5.0 at 
115200bps. For me, it locks up right after the "Angel Debug Monitor.." 
sign-on message, more than 9 times out of 10. This is consistent with what 
I've been told about gdb and angel not switching speeds at the same time.

When this happens, gdb is locked up and the entire cygwin session needs to 
be killed in order to proceed. That is under cygwin 1.1.8 under Win2000.

Now for another reliability test: I load a simple hello world program and 
stepi through it (connected at 9600bps). I try it three times and it stops 
in a different place each time. When I don't step it, it runs perfectly 
(it's an infinite loop, and it keeps running blinking LEDs, so I know it's 
not just randomly stopping after some amount of time).

I've never had these sorts of problems using gdb talking to gdb stubs, but 
they seem endemic to Angel use.

>it may become irrelevant -- Microsoft stopped selling Win9x altogether.
>It seems that there is no current way of buying it, just Millennium and
>2000.

WinME is pretty much 9x with 2000's icons (and a god-awful media player 
applet that takes over your whole life). MS is trying to get the home user 
market firmly weaned off DOS with Windows XP (Whistler) but I am not 
holding my breath... billions of dollars in unsupported legacy peripherals 
out there.

>I still don't understand why I don't see this problem.  We must have
>some different setup somewhere.  I haven't done anything too heavy in
>the 2000 machine though, only in the NT4.0 one.  Would it be some 2000
>problem?  I think you should definitively post to the Cygwin list...

I have an NT4.0 (server) box next to me, I quickly tried the 115200bps test 
above and it hung exactly the same way. I haven't tried any further testing.

=== Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (Embedded Engineer)
Work: http://www.digi-frame.com/
Personal: http://www.zws.com/ and http://www.larwe.com/

"Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein,
Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein."

Re: Angel not present

[Fernando Nasser]

"Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" wrote:
> 
> Hi Fernando,
> 
> > > > > >2) Old versions of Cygwin had a problem with the serial port.  The
> > > > >
> > > > > I have observed this problem with Cygwin 1.1.8, which is the currently
> > >
> > > I am observing the problem _right now_ on this Win2000 system. It's not a
> >
> >In this case, I think you should post a note to the Cygwin people.  They
> 
> I don't believe it's a Cygwin problem, though. I am told, and believe, that
> it's an Angel bug.
> 
> If you happen to have an AT91EB40 there, try using it with gdb 5.0 at
> 115200bps. For me, it locks up right after the "Angel Debug Monitor.."
> sign-on message, more than 9 times out of 10. This is consistent with what
> I've been told about gdb and angel not switching speeds at the same time.
> 

I was looking and some list messages and it seems that GDB 5.0 does have
a problem with RDI on Cygwin.  Everyone who switched to a recent GDB
snapshot said that the problem disappeared. 

It may well worth a shot.



> When this happens, gdb is locked up and the entire cygwin session needs to
> be killed in order to proceed. That is under cygwin 1.1.8 under Win2000.
> 
> Now for another reliability test: I load a simple hello world program and
> stepi through it (connected at 9600bps). I try it three times and it stops
> in a different place each time. When I don't step it, it runs perfectly
> (it's an infinite loop, and it keeps running blinking LEDs, so I know it's
> not just randomly stopping after some amount of time).
> 
> I've never had these sorts of problems using gdb talking to gdb stubs, but
> they seem endemic to Angel use.
> 
> >it may become irrelevant -- Microsoft stopped selling Win9x altogether.
> >It seems that there is no current way of buying it, just Millennium and
> >2000.
> 
> WinME is pretty much 9x with 2000's icons (and a god-awful media player
> applet that takes over your whole life). MS is trying to get the home user
> market firmly weaned off DOS with Windows XP (Whistler) but I am not
> holding my breath... billions of dollars in unsupported legacy peripherals
> out there.
> 
> >I still don't understand why I don't see this problem.  We must have
> >some different setup somewhere.  I haven't done anything too heavy in
> >the 2000 machine though, only in the NT4.0 one.  Would it be some 2000
> >problem?  I think you should definitively post to the Cygwin list...
> 
> I have an NT4.0 (server) box next to me, I quickly tried the 115200bps test
> above and it hung exactly the same way. I haven't tried any further testing.
> 
> === Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (Embedded Engineer)
> Work: http://www.digi-frame.com/
> Personal: http://www.zws.com/ and http://www.larwe.com/
> 
> "Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein,
> Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein."

-- 
Fernando Nasser
Red Hat Canada Ltd.                     E-Mail:  fnasser@redhat.com
2323 Yonge Street, Suite #300
Toronto, Ontario   M4P 2C9

Re: Angel not present

[Fernando Nasser]

Daniel.Andersson@combitechsystems.com wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I am trying to set up an environment where i am using GNU tools to develop
> my application. The problem is that i am using an ARM7TDMI board and the
> only stub that is available is the angel (not GDB). However, i want to
> connect the insight to the board using the angel protocol but it is not
> present in the "target" option. And the remote/serial does not work. Can I
> install support for the angel protocol or what should i do?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Daniel Andersson

You must be either:

1) Using a very old version of Insight+GDB

2) Do not have it configure as a cross-debugger for a arm-elf target.



-- 
Fernando Nasser
Red Hat Canada Ltd.                     E-Mail:  fnasser@redhat.com
2323 Yonge Street, Suite #300
Toronto, Ontario   M4P 2C9

RE: Angel not present

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

Hi Daniel,

> >set remotebaud 9600
> >target rdi /dev/ttyS0
> >(or com1 or whatever is appropriate for your installation)
>
>I have tried the above but i dont seem to have the rdi (i assume that this
>is another word for Angel...). When i do i get the:
>
>Undefined target command: "rdi COM1"

Hmmm. I didn't do anything special to get angel working (I don't know what 
rdi means exactly, I think it's probably an acronym for something. rdp 
works with the older Demon debugger). Are you using the latest release 
version? I'm guessing you're using cygwin, from the fact that you're using 
COMx port designators.. I followed the install/configure instructions with 
eCos (see sources.redhat.com).

Here is an example session:

$ gdb --nw --nx
GNU gdb 5.0
Copyright 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "--host=i586-pc-cygwin --target=arm-elf".
(gdb) set remotebaud 9600
(gdb) target rdi com1
Angel Debug Monitor (serial) 1.04 (Advanced RISC Machines SDT 2.5) for AT91EB40
(2.00)
Angel Debug Monitor rebuilt on Apr 07 2000 at 12:40:31
Serial Rate:   9600
Connected to ARM RDI target.
(gdb)

Maybe I could just send you my arm-elf-gdb.exe and see if that works for you.
=== Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (Embedded Engineer)
Work: http://www.digi-frame.com/
Personal: http://www.zws.com/ and http://www.larwe.com/

"Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein,
Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein."

RE: Angel not present

[Daniel.Andersson]

Hi again,

>set remotebaud 9600
>target rdi /dev/ttyS0
>(or com1 or whatever is appropriate for your installation)

I have tried the above but i dont seem to have the rdi (i assume that this
is another word for Angel...). When i do i get the:

Undefined target command: "rdi COM1"

Do i have to issue a special parameter when i build gdb to have rdi (angel)
in my installation?

/Daniel

Just before you press Enter on the target line, reset your board. Within a 
couple of seconds of pressing Enter, you should see the Angel sign-on 
message on the gdb console, and a couple of seconds later you'll be back at 
the gdb prompt.

However note that this arrangement (gdb talking to angel) is at best very 
fragile. I haven't tried it with the Insight graphical front-end. If you 
have problems, try using gdb --nw to run gdb in raw console mode.

If you're running on a chip vendor's eval board, crosspost to the eCos 
discussion list to see if someone there has maybe created un unsupported 
port of gdb stubs for that board.

=== Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (Embedded Engineer)
Work: http://www.digi-frame.com/
Personal: http://www.zws.com/ and http://www.larwe.com/

"Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein,
Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein."

Re: Angel not present

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

Hi Daniel,

>I am trying to set up an environment where i am using GNU tools to develop
>my application. The problem is that i am using an ARM7TDMI board and the
>only stub that is available is the angel (not GDB). However, i want to
>connect the insight to the board using the angel protocol but it is not
>present in the "target" option. And the remote/serial does not work. Can I
>install support for the angel protocol or what should i do?

In a gdb console window, type:

set remotebaud 9600
target rdi /dev/ttyS0
(or com1 or whatever is appropriate for your installation)

Just before you press Enter on the target line, reset your board. Within a 
couple of seconds of pressing Enter, you should see the Angel sign-on 
message on the gdb console, and a couple of seconds later you'll be back at 
the gdb prompt.

However note that this arrangement (gdb talking to angel) is at best very 
fragile. I haven't tried it with the Insight graphical front-end. If you 
have problems, try using gdb --nw to run gdb in raw console mode.

If you're running on a chip vendor's eval board, crosspost to the eCos 
discussion list to see if someone there has maybe created un unsupported 
port of gdb stubs for that board.

=== Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (Embedded Engineer)
Work: http://www.digi-frame.com/
Personal: http://www.zws.com/ and http://www.larwe.com/

"Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein,
Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein."

Angel not present

[Daniel.Andersson]

Hi all,

I am trying to set up an environment where i am using GNU tools to develop
my application. The problem is that i am using an ARM7TDMI board and the
only stub that is available is the angel (not GDB). However, i want to
connect the insight to the board using the angel protocol but it is not
present in the "target" option. And the remote/serial does not work. Can I
install support for the angel protocol or what should i do?

Regards, 

Daniel Andersson