GDB Stubs for PowerPC BSP with old-exceptions

[Thomas Doerfler]

Robert,


Robert S. Grimes schrieb:
> 
>   4. The previous point hints at a bigger issue that should be resolved
> - that is, how to handle the variability in the FPGA configurations
> that, while similar enough in function that one might reasonably expect
> the BSP to work with, still varies from my configuration in important
> details.  For example, at what offset does the interrupt controller or
> the serial port live.  I had problems with this when getting up to
> speed.  The Xilinx tools generate a header file (xparameters.h) that
> contains this sort of information, and gets us part of the way there,
> but even that might not be enough.  For example, I don't like the
> default names the tools use for peripherals, so the constants end up
> with different names.  Another example is serial ports; if you have more
> than one, how does the BSP know which one is to be the console port? 
> I'm thinking some sort of configuration file is the answer, but I'm not
> sure where to put it in the hierarchy.  This gets particularly tricky
> when you consider the official RTEMS tree vs. any user's source control
> choices.  I'm using Subversion (subversion.tigris.org) and a "vendor
> drop" approach, which makes it easy for me to deal with this, but I
> would not want to force others to do the same. 

I think it will not be so hard to support different MAC implementations
in the same BSP (family). But this is a smaller issue for now, I would
guess.

Getting the BSP licensing clean would also be an issue before commiting.

Using "xparameters.h" or something similar should be a feasible way to
adapt the BSP to the individual implementations. I think it is NOT
neccesary to allow ANY adaptation automatically, it would be nice to
have the possibility to handle the most common once (number of
UARTs/MACs...).

RTEMS has the "bspopts.h.in", which allows also to apply customizations
to a given BSP, maybe this would be a vehicle to make the BSP as generic
as possible.

And: Having ANY BSP is better than to start totally from scratch :-)

I have a ML403 board and the EDK. Until now I have played around with it
a little, but did not do serious stuff (but I have worked with FPGAs
before).

If you could give me:

- a suitable Xilinx system configuration (memory map etc)
- the BSP stuff you are using now
- maybe some hints on how to use all this together

then I would:

- document what went wrong during my test drive (which might result in a
good "getting started" documentation for others)
- try to get the BSP running on my board
- transition the exception handling model from old to new, if you like
- try to fix your "auto*" stuff

wkr,
Thomas.

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