[ECOS] questions about redboot

[Lewin A.R.W. Edwards]

Hi Liang,

I didn't see a reply to this, so I will answer some of your question 
quickly (note I am not a redboot or ecos expert, just a "black box" user at 
this point):

>    My target platform is edb7212, I use serial port to communicate with

Me too, though I just submitted my schematic to the factory and am soon to 
receive my first real PCB and start porting to my real hardware...

>    Can I use redboot to debug kernel like that when I writing NT/9x
>     driver? (which have kernel debugging tools which could let me source
>     level and single step trace my driver)

"Kind of". Redboot contains a gdb back-end which talks to gdb on your host 
PC over a serial link. Since you're familiar with MS tools: it is _closest_ 
in similarity to using WDEB386 and a serial terminal to debug ring 0 code. 
You can examine and modify memory, you can step through the program (either 
by source line or by machine code instruction), you can set breakpoints, 
and so on.

Redboot is more intrusive than a hardware debugging solution, but it is 
cheap and effective. You cannot virtualize I/O and memory writes, for instance.

>     If it could, how to setting up so that I can do so?

Assuming the serial cable is still connected, just run arm-elf-gdb 
[elfname.exe] on your host PC, then:

set remotebaud 38400
target remote com1 (or whatever is the COM port)
continue

=== 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."