Insight

Altera_Forum · ‎12-21-2005

I'm running NIOSII v.5.0 with QuartusII v.5.0 on my Windows 2000 machine. The

installation of both packages was ok. I have built a .elf file containing my application (without use of NIOSII IDE) and I want to debug it using Insight (GDB)

from the Cygwin command line. I run Insight using the following command:

nios2-debug --cable=usb-blaster <myApplicationFile.elf>

On the console screen I see no error messages and my application is downloaded

into hardware memory. I'm able to see the first two lines of my application. The

problem is concerning the commands to run the application. No commands work

and, if I try to type the commands on the GDB console, GDB doesn't reply also

when I type wrong commands. It seems GDB is not running

Please, can you help me ?

Best Regards

/Alessandro

Altera_Forum · ‎12-21-2005

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originally posted by alessandro@Dec 21 2005, 01:02 PM

i'm running niosii v.5.0 with quartusii v.5.0 on my windows 2000 machine. the

installation of both packages was ok. i have built a .elf file containing my application (without use of niosii ide) and i want to debug it using insight (gdb)

from the cygwin command line. i run insight using the following command:

nios2-debug --cable=usb-blaster <myapplicationfile.elf>

on the console screen i see no error messages and my application is downloaded

into hardware memory. i'm able to see the first two lines of my application. the

problem is concerning the commands to run the application. no commands work

and, if i try to type the commands on the gdb console, gdb doesn't reply also

when i type wrong commands. it seems gdb is not running

please, can you help me ?

best regards

/alessandro

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--- quote end ---

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If I remember correctly, nios2-debug is a vestige of the 'legacy SDK' -- are you using that?

As an alternative I would suggest the direct approach - this is an excerpt from our eCos for Nios II document that describes loading & debugging via insight; there is nothing magical about an eCos .elf from one you create, so this should in theory work for you as well. Granted, there may be some tweaking required:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

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8.2 JTAG debug using Insight

To debug an application using nios2-elf-insight, you should first launch nios2-gdb-server to establish a JTAG connection to the board. This is done by running the following command from within an SDK shell:

> nios2-gdb-server –-tcpport=2343 &

To debug an application named “hello” in the current directory, you should then run:

> nios2-elf-insight hello

This will launch the insight debug interface. To connect to the board, open the GDB console by selecting “Console” from the “view” menu. Then type the following commands:

> target remote :2343

> load

> break main

> jump *_start

This will: establish a connection to the target; download the executable; set a breakpoint at main; and then begin execution.

You can use these same commands when using nios2-elf-gdb in place of nios2-elf-insight.

From here, it is then possible to step, break, continue etc. You can find further information the Insight online help (select “help” at the top of the Insight window).[/b]

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Note that the above example assumes that "hello" is an .elf file... just without any .elf file extension.

Altera_Forum · ‎12-22-2005

Right.... and you can use other GDB-compatible debuggers, as well. ddd (http://www.gnu.org/software/ddd/) is a particularly nice one, if you're UNIX jock.

Cheers,

- slacker