(PR excerpt) — Green Hills Software today announced the availability of its MULTI Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for embedded Linux systems. MULTI supports debugging Linux applications, the Linux kernel, and Linux device drivers, and works with existing GNU development tool chains for Intel/Pentium, embedded MIPS, and embedded PowerPC environments.

MULTI gives Linux kernel developers who are accustomed to debugging their code with primitive print statements and command-line gdb debuggers a full-featured, commercial solution that greatly simplifies the debug process. MULTI is especially helpful to Linux kernel developers, enabling them to debug full source code, Interrupt Service Routines, loadable kernel modules, non-ISR kernel code (including kernel threads), and complex device driver code that runs in the Linux kernel.

MULTI provides powerful debug facilities that are normally available only to application developers. MULTI's customizable Register Description Files (RDF), for example, greatly simplify driver development by allowing designers to create databook-like views of on-and off-chip (e.g. PCI) device registers. MULTI provides full support for kernel breakpoints, enabling developers to save and restore breakpoints across debug sessions on a per-kernel-module basis. Using MULTI, designers can seamlessly debug and synchronously control multiple CPU cores with a single instance of MULTI. The MULTI debugger, hosted on a PC or Unix system, communicates with the Linux kernel on the target system through a high-speed probe (Green Hills Probe) attached to the target board's on-chip JTAG or BDM connector.

MULTI is also ideal for debugging Linux applications, utilizing an Ethernet link and a small debug agent running under Linux to communicate with the target system.

MULTI provides full support for GNU compilers and the GNU tool chain, importing the debugging information produced by the GNU C and C++ compilers. This enables developers to utilize existing compilers and makefiles with little or no modification, while still taking full advantage of MULTI's powerful debugging capabilities.

MULTI For Linux is priced at $5,900 for a single-user node-locked license, with floating licenses and site licensing plans available.

 
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