[LinuxBIOS] Good JTAG debuggers?

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Hi,

can anyone give me a hint where to get a good and affordable
JTAG debugger? Or which model I should look for?
I might need one for OLPC development.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

[Greg Watson]

We've used an Abatron BDI 9000 with good success. It works nicely  
with gdb and allows kernel debugging. Ultimate Solutions Inc. (http:// 
ultsol.com) also have an Eclipse-based GUI interface for it, though I  
haven't tried it out.

IBM's Riscwatch is another one, but they are really hard to get hold  
of and more expensive than the Abatron. The debugger software only  
runs on Windows and Linux.

Greg

On May 29, 2006, at 8:00 AM, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> Hi,
>
> can anyone give me a hint where to get a good and affordable
> JTAG debugger? Or which model I should look for?
> I might need one for OLPC development.
>
> Regards,
> Carl-Daniel
> -- 
> http://www.hailfinger.org/

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Carl-Daniel Hailfinger  [060529 16:00]:
> Hi,
>
> can anyone give me a hint where to get a good and affordable
> JTAG debugger? Or which model I should look for?
> I might need one for OLPC development.

For some systems it is just enough to use a parallel port cable with
JTAG connector and an intelligent piece of software (some such can be
found on freshmeat) - never tried this with x86 though.

Stefan

[Ronald G Minnich]

for OLPC, you really ought to have an FS2

ron

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> for OLPC, you really ought to have an FS2

Even if I only want to reflash the BIOS?
FS2 products are waaay too expensive for me, I had
hoped for something well under 100$. Speed is not
important for me.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

[Ronald G Minnich]

Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> > for OLPC, you really ought to have an FS2
>
> Even if I only want to reflash the BIOS?

oh. to reflash, you can use the olpc itself.

ron

[David Hendricks]

If all you need is a reprogrammer, you can always use the hot swap trick
(Described on this list and the wiki). Or better yet, for about $25US (
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=bios+savior&btnG=Search ) you can get a
BIOS Savior to make the process less hazardous to your mainboard's health.
It's a piggyback device with a switch so you don't even need to remove it
once installed--Just flip the switch to go back and forth between ROMs.

On 5/30/06, Ronald G Minnich  wrote:
> Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> > Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> > > for OLPC, you really ought to have an FS2
> >
> > Even if I only want to reflash the BIOS?
>
> oh. to reflash, you can use the olpc itself.
>
> ron

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

David Hendricks wrote:
> If all you need is a reprogrammer, you can always use the hot swap trick
> (Described on this list and the wiki). Or better yet, for about $25US (
> http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=bios+savior&btnG=Search ) you can get a
> BIOS Savior to make the process less hazardous to your mainboard's health.
> It's a piggyback device with a switch so you don't even need to remove it
> once installed--Just flip the switch to go back and forth between ROMs.

The OLPC BIOS chip is soldered on the board, so the BIOS saviour and the
hot swap trick unfortunately won't work.

Semi-OT: Does Google use LinuxBIOS? AFAICS that would be a natural fit.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

[Li-Ta Lo]

On Tue, 2006-05-30 at 21:03 +0200, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> David Hendricks wrote:
> > If all you need is a reprogrammer, you can always use the hot swap trick
> > (Described on this list and the wiki). Or better yet, for about $25US (
> > http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=bios+savior&btnG=Search ) you can get a
> > BIOS Savior to make the process less hazardous to your mainboard's health.
> > It's a piggyback device with a switch so you don't even need to remove it
> > once installed--Just flip the switch to go back and forth between ROMs.
>
> The OLPC BIOS chip is soldered on the board, so the BIOS saviour and the
> hot swap trick unfortunately won't work.

The OLPC rev A should have a socket for the LPC flash rom.
> Semi-OT: Does Google use LinuxBIOS? AFAICS that would be a natural fit.
>
> Regards,
> Carl-Daniel
> -- 
> http://www.hailfinger.org/

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> > Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> > > for OLPC, you really ought to have an FS2
> >
> > Even if I only want to reflash the BIOS?
>
> oh. to reflash, you can use the olpc itself.

Unless it doesn't boot. Which was the only reason I was looking for
a JTAG debugger. Do you know whether these cheap parallel port JTAG
cables are sufficient to reflash the OLPC BIOS in case I screw up
during flashing?

Regards,
Carl-Daniel