Debugging X.org drivers?

[Kendall Bennett]

Jim Gettys <Jim.Gettys at hp.com> wrote:

> X11R6.8 has the ability to load .so files as well as the XFree86
> loader, and therefore is able to be debugged using a standard GDB. 

Well that has been around for a long time in XFree86 also, but last time 
I tried it (XFree86 4.3.0) it didn't work at all. The X server would not 
start after I did a make install.

So if this has changed and now this is working, I will happily ditch my 
efforts to debug real X server modules and switch to compiling for .so 
libraries again.

I assume I just change the host.def file to enable this, at least that is 
what I did last time when it did not work. If someone has more details on 
how to enable this in X.org I am all ears.

Regards,

> I don't know the exact details; IIRC Adam Jackson (ajax) did the work...
> 				- Jim
> 
> On Sat, 2004-10-30 at 02:47 +0200, Thomas Winischhofer wrote:
> > Kendall Bennett wrote:
> > > Hi All,
> > > 
> > > Has the situation changed somewhat from the XFree86 days with debugging 
> > > the loadable modules in the server using GDB? I am still stuck on Red Hat 
> > > 7.3 to have a working GDB that will debug loadable modules, and I want to 
> > > move my X development box up to Fedora Core 2. Unfortunately I just tried 
> > > my old GDB 6.0 patch under x86 and it crashes as soon as it tries to do 
> > > something with the module (hit a breakpoint or whatever).
> > > 
> > > Strangely we used this about a month ago for our port to x86-64, and it 
> > > ran fine with GDB 6.0 on x86-64 and Fedora Core 2. 
> > > 
> > > Is there a better patch for a later GDB that works on x86 versions of 
> > > Fedora Core 2? If not I suppose I can try to debug the current patch and 
> > > then try to port it to GDB 6.2.1.
> > 
> > 
> > AIFAK, there was a specially patched gdb for debugging loadable modules. 
> > Egbert Eich knows more about this.
> > 
> > Thomas
> > 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> xorg mailing list
> xorg at freedesktop.org
> http://freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg


---
Kendall Bennett
Chief Executive Officer
SciTech Software, Inc.
Phone: (530) 894 8400
http://www.scitechsoft.com

~ SciTech SNAP - The future of device driver technology! ~