From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 19362 invoked by alias); 7 Jun 2007 13:21:06 -0000 Received: (qmail 19311 invoked by uid 22791); 7 Jun 2007 13:21:03 -0000 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=1.5 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_40,DK_POLICY_SIGNSOME,DNS_FROM_RFC_POST X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from sccrmhc15.comcast.net (HELO sccrmhc15.comcast.net) (63.240.77.85) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:20:54 +0000 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (c-24-62-91-206.hsd1.ma.comcast.net[24.62.91.206]) by comcast.net (sccrmhc15) with ESMTP id <2007060713204901500cfc4te>; Thu, 7 Jun 2007 13:20:53 +0000 Message-ID: <46680618.4010705@comcast.net> Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:21:00 -0000 From: Peter Bach User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 (Windows/20070326) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mike Mason CC: SystemTAP Subject: Re: SystemTap on Ubuntu 7.04 i386 References: <46659C45.9010309@us.ibm.com> In-Reply-To: <46659C45.9010309@us.ibm.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact systemtap-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: systemtap-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2007-q2/txt/msg00511.txt.bz2 Mike Mason wrote: > I'm wondering if we could get the distros to install the vmlinux-only > debuginfo by default. I'm guessing this would allow 95% of systemtap > to work out-of-box. This is a great idea, to have the debuginfo available. The situation I find myself in is to load the distro (usually RedHat or SuSE), and use online repositories to keep up to date. The problem is that if a new kernel gets installed, I have to recompile with debuginfo just to get the usefulness of SystemTap. I always take the defaults for a kernel build, I want to use a computer for useful stuff; I would hate to calculate how much time I've wasted compiling kernels just to get debuginfo for SystemTap. Is there a better way? I don't know if this is a function of having the distros compile a version with debuginfo, or just making it available in the online repositories, but this would seem to be a big hurdle that impedes that uptake of SystemTap for all but die hard users. The real value is that SystemTap is not only useful for solving problems in during the development cycle, but illuminates how Linux works under the covers, in the most dynamic way, when it is actually running. This is much more useful that perusing the code. The target audience for this is only every CS student on the planet.