bdi200 or powertap.. help me to decide.

bdi200 or powertap.. help me to decide.

[Omanakuttan]

Hi,
we are developing a custom board based on mpc8260eds board and planning
to run linux on it. We require a tool to debug the kernel and ppcboot,
if required.
I have been following the recent ( and ongoing ) discussions on bdi2000.
I have recommended the company to buy bdi2000. The company is
considering bdi2000 and powertap. ( AMC Applied Microsystems
Corporation's PowerTAP™).
I am going through the data sheet of powertap and doing a comparitative
study of both products to find out which one is better suited for linux
kernel debugging. Frankly we don't need any of the jazz that powertap +
MWX-ICE™ debugger offers .We will be happy to use GNU tools. One good
feature I see in powertap is to examine the contents of the registers.
but I am a little pessimistic about the linux kernel debug support on
powertap.

If you have any inputs that will help me to decide the product we should
buy, please provide them.

Thanks and regards,
Om.


** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/

Re: bdi200 or powertap.. help me to decide.

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <3E1CFC5D.5030608@tataelxsi.co.in> you wrote:
>
> I have been following the recent ( and ongoing ) discussions on bdi2000.
> I have recommended the company to buy bdi2000. The company is
> considering bdi2000 and powertap. ( AMC Applied Microsystems
> Corporation's PowerTAP™).
> I am going through the data sheet of powertap and doing a comparitative
> study of both products to find out which one is better suited for linux
> kernel debugging. Frankly we don't need any of the jazz that powertap +
> MWX-ICE™ debugger offers .We will be happy to use GNU tools. One good
> feature I see in powertap is to examine the contents of the registers.
> but I am a little pessimistic about the linux kernel debug support on
> powertap.

Ask yourself (and your AMC /  Metrowerks  sales  guy)  the  following
questions:

* Does the PowerTAP documentation / sales guys claim to support Linux
  as target OS? Especially is the MMU support good enough to debug
  for example dynamically loaded kernel modules?

* How many people on this mailing list actually reported that they
  have successfully used a PowerTAP to debug the Linux kernel
  including dynamically loaded device drivers?

* Is there support for Linux as host OS?

* Does the Linux kernel provide special hooks for the PowerTAP
  (equivalent to the CONFIG_BDI_SWITCH configuration option)?

* Which CPUs are supported by the PowerTAP? The BDI2000 supports
  CPU32/32+, ColdFire, PowerPC, ARM, MIPS32, XScale and M-CORE ...


Guess what we're using...


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

--
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd@denx.de
I wish I had a bronze torc for every user who didn't read the manual.
                             - Terry Pratchett, _The Light Fantastic_

** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/