development tools

[Francois-Rene Rideau]

> Development tools I use:
> 
> Linux GNU gcc/binutils/gdb and as86/ld86
> DJGPP 2.0 GNU gcc/binutils/fsdb
> A86/Turbo Debug (for 16-bit coding)
> (also GNU make and awk)
This looks fine to me.

> Of these, the DJGPP environment is the only one which has a functioning
> assembly level 32-bit debugger, so I'm going to be switching to that. (I
> just got it.)
I'm eager to see that running...

> I'm currently trying to figure out how the port as86/ld86 over to DJGPP. 
> Problem is, DJGPP uses COFF, which I know nothing about, while as86 uses
> a.out and something unknown. So I'm going to have recompile binutils, so
> I can use objcopy to convert Linux a.out into COFF.
DJGPP comes with binutils. Is that version too old ?

> This probably won't
> get done for a while... :-(  But once done, I'll move the work over to
> as86, instead of gas.
Once it's done, you should send the patches to the regular binutils
maintainers, and warn the new Assembly HOWTO maintainer (me).

> Note: I'll be doing development under DJGPP, but I'll maintain makefiles 
> for Linux, so everyone else can use that.
Thanks !

> I'm still looking for a 32-bit debugger for Linux capable of doing 
> assembly level without extreme brain-damage, like gdb. (Preferably a 
> full-screen debugger, like Turbo Debug.) If anyone has any suggestions, 
> or knows of a package that I haven't found, please let me know.
I've been disappointed by all debugger packages I've found,
and whenever I can, I arrange so I don't need a debugger,
or I embed debugging code into the program to be debugged
(which sadly means recompilation at each test).

-- Fare