Re: debug problemsss

[Blaz Antonic <blaz.antonic@havn.com>]

Hello,

> Is the standard init process using the entire amount of memory to run
> (2MB)?

No, it's not ... ELKS doesn't utilize memory above 640 KB anyway :-) If
programs have separate CS and DS they use up to 128 KB (i'm not sure
about that).
 
> For me the problem is on the A20 gate handling. I try to initialize
> it in assembly code as there's in the 2.2.20 linux official kernel but
> nothing change.

Nope, for reason explained above :) ELKS works in real mode (8086) and
doesn't use memory above 640 KB (although it should be able to use up to
1 MB with 8086 CPU with minor modifications in kernel & major
alterations in hardware). Alternative would be some kind of bank
switching (like EMS) but it seems those few boards people have function
in a different way, i guess LIM EMS drivers for DOS were the highest
common denominator.
 
> How do I debug this kernel on my system? is there any standard solution
> or must I to insert puts() for everywhere?

Nope again, you have to insert printk()s everywhere :-) To be more
specific, if you #define DEBUG (or DEBUG_something where something is
relevant #ifdef check for specific piece of code) debug messages might
start poppoing up ... at least in the parts of code i've written/worked
on. They aren't very helpful though unless you know exactly what code
does - if you know that you don't need debug messages since they were
used, well, for debugging purposes :)
 
IS ths Elan chip 486-compatible or 186-compatible ? I know it's AMD MCU
but i'm too lazy to move to their webpage (i'm not sure if they have
embedded chips section anymore, they reworked some of their pages
afaik). Oh, you only have 2 MB of RAM anyway ... i guess it doesn't
matter.

Blaz Antonic