Mentor Embedded Linux
Harness the power of open source
Mentor Embedded Linux brings a new approach that fully empowers developers to create their own unique product platform with powerful tools that maximize developer productivity, all backed by commercial support.
EDGE Developer Suite for Linux
Enhanced for Linux. Built upon Eclipse™.
Mentor Embedded Linux includes a special version of the EDGE Developer Suite introducing new Linux-specific technologies to enhance developer effectiveness. The EDGE Developer Suite, an IDE built upon the Eclipse™ framework, provides tools to speed Linux based product development giving developers insight into their application that can’t be obtained using traditional command line debugging tools. Developers need, first and foremost, a powerful debug solution and the EDGE Developer Suite delivers Linux specific features that can tackle debug challenges in applications that include both traditional Linux userspace applications and Linux kernel components.
Built upon the Eclipse™. EDGE provides tools to speed Linux based product development, giving developers insight into their application that can’t be obtained using traditional command line debugging tools.
Key Features
- Single session for application or kernel
- Stop or Non-stop mode
- Scriptable debug sessions
- Inspect kernel data structures with hover codelets
- Debug into loadable kernel modules
Works with:
- Mentor Embedded Probes
- Mentor Embedded Linux Debug Agent
- Freescale USB Tap
- multiple threads
- multiple processes
- multiple cores
- multiple operating systems
Benefits
- Quickly attack application problems wherever they are without having to switch tools
- Simple configuration, no userspace burden
- Scales past traditional limits on number of threads
- Cross between kernel and user context easily
Gain debug insight. Linux Debug Agent gives developers deeper insight into how their application is interacting with both userspace and Linux kernel software.
Linux Debug Agent
Unlike traditional “enterprise” computing applications most embedded software applications aren’t just simple userspace applications. Debugging these applications the traditional way requires developers to juggle multiple debug connections and agents that don’t cooperate to present a complete picture to the developer. Using the Linux Debug Agent the EDGE Developer Suite transcends these limitations to give developers deeper insight into how their application is interacting with both userspace and Linux kernel software.
Why is the Linux Debug Agent better than KGDB and gdbserver?
The traditional software-based approach to debug both the kernel and userspace resident portions of an embedded application calls for two software debug agents to be used at the same time. gdbserver connects to the userspace portion of the application on the target while KGDB is used to connect to the kernel portion of the application. The difficulty of this approach is that neither agent is aware of the other and hence they can’t cooperate to provide a unified and powerful developer experience.
Can I step from my application into the kernel?
Yes!
Why not use JTAG?
Because JTAG probes are often not available to all developers. JTAG probes also typically stop the entire system during a breakpoint which can disrupt system operation at the very moment you need to see what is really happening inside your design.
EDGE Debugger
Powerful debugging environment with Linux specific enhancements
EDGE Debugger goes beyond standard debug features – including advanced scripting, I/O visibility, and Linux awareness capabilities – to help embedded software engineers reduce the large amounts of time they spend debugging. Seamlessly integrated within the Eclipse-based EDGE IDE, EDGE Debugger offers a powerful debug experience to see inside both the Linux kernel and applications on real target.
- Advanced Interface and Capabilities
- Unparalleled Customization via Codelets
- Flexible Data Visualization via Channel Viewers
- Straight-forward Target Customization
- Configurable Register View
Linux Kernel Insight
The EDGE Debugger includes a special library of Codelets that can provide developers with insight into the internal operation of the Linux kernel. The Linux Codelet Library contains a set of prepared codelets that can interpret kernel data structures and render those for viewing by the developer in the EDGE IDE. The codelets render these data structures when the mouse cursor is held over a variable in the editor.
JTAG Probe for EDGE. Debug on your target system.
JTAG Probe for EDGE
Debug on your target system
A fundamental requirement for embedded software development is the ability to connect a debugger running on a host computer (like a PC) to the target system. EDGE Debugger connects to processors via the standardized JTAG debug logic IP macrocell and supports the CodeWarrier USB TAP host target interface for debugging the Power architecture.
Compiler
Complete code development solutions for embedded developers
Every embedded developer needs a compiler toolkit – a set of tools that takes embedded C, C++, and assembly language source code and performs all the processing to generate a final binary image. Projects built on Mentor Embedded Linux are no different. System Builder creates the correct compiler toolkit that correspond to your unique product platform. The EDGE IDE uses this compiler toolkit to help developers create their application.
Import Linux ADKs from System Builder
The EDGE IDE can import ADKs (Application Developer Kits) built by System Builder and use the bundled compilers and settings to automatically and correctly setup application projects. Difficult to maintain project settings are now handled automatically by this innovative feature.