Make available source and debug packages corresponding to Linaro binary images

[Vinod Krishnamoni]

Recently, a user of Linaro images within ARM reported the below:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some Linaro related questions that I wonder if someone on the alias knows the answers to.

Yesterday I did this:
sudo /home/markn/apps/linaro-image-tools/linaro-image-tools-0.4.8/linaro-media-create --rootfs ext3 --mmc /dev/sdb --binary ./linaro-n-ubuntu-desktop-tar-20110629-0.tar.gz --hwpack ./hwpack_linaro-panda_20110629-1_armel_supported.tar.gz --dev panda

And it all worked splendidly and I have a working Ubuntu on my SDcard.

But, for various reasons, I now want/need to be able to load the matching kernel debug symbols (for vmlinux) into a debugger.

Initially I thought vmlinux might be pre-built inside the HW pack for me. But if it is I can't see it. I can see the kernel used is: 2.6.38-1003 and I can download the source here https://launchpad.net/linux-linaro/+milestone/2.6.39-2011.06

I could rebuild the kernel, just to get an ELF image with debug symbols. But, I'd presumably also need to know the exact version of GCC used to build the original on my SD card. (And I don't know where to find that info). Or I could rebuild with my current version of GCC and also replace the linux binary that linaro-media-create, put on my SDcard.

All this seems a bit contrary to the spirit of Linaro making life easy, perhaps my use case isn't typical.

So my questions are:
- Does anyone know if the Linaro packages really do contain an image with debug info that I'm just failing to find?
- If they don't - do we know if they will
- And finally is there a better way for me to go about this I'm just failing to see?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Similar issues were reported by other Linaro users within ARM related to the lack of availability of debug packages. In one instance, someone tried a kernel debug of the Linaro images with DS-5 only to figure that a matching vmlinux with debug symbols is not supplied. This makes life harder for Linaro users.

[Vinod Krishnamoni (vinod-krishnamoni)]

We'd also like an 'easy' way to get debug/source packages into a useable state for Windows people. (Essentially a series of 'download, untar, unarchive steps. I think all necessary tools are available as Windows-native - but use of cygwin is acceptable )

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

Lets track this on the distro side: moving to linaro-ubuntu project.

[Anmar Oueja (anmar)]

Alexander: This bug is important to ARM so how can we escalate its resolution? Ideally, we want it done by the October monthly release. Should I touch base with Ricardo on this to draft up a BP and assign it for Oct. Monthly cycle?

[Ricardo Salveti (rsalveti)]

Guess we can split this in two goals:
1 - Have the debug and source packages against each kernel package available at the PPA: not that complicated to implement and should probably make 11.09.

2 - Having a generic solution for accessing/installing the debug symbols from all packages available at the Overlay PPA: until Launchpad PPA/derived distro supports dbgsym packages, we could make them available at another repository, by building the packages with pkg-create-dbgsym and making them available somewhere. This will probably be work for 11.10/11.11, but will add now to our backlog.

[Anmar Oueja (anmar)]

Ricardo: Thanks for looking after this. Can we break 2 into a separate bug or BP and target it at Nov?

[Fathi Boudra (fboudra)]

< rsalveti> we have kernel dbg packages available now.

[Ricardo Salveti (rsalveti)]

First part is already done for 11.09. At the Overlay you can now find dbgsym packages available for all linux-linaro flavors. Next step now is to make sure the same changes end up at the LT packages that are not maintained by the dev platform, such as for IMX53, Origen and Snowball.

[Ricardo Salveti (rsalveti)]

Put it as in progress again as only one part of the bug got fixed during 11.09. We still need a way to provide the dbgsyms for all other packages available at the overlay.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

Anmar, I would like to see this moving for dbgsym situation of the LT kernels that are not maintained by devplatform? Feel free to ping me/ricardo on IRC to discuss options and give background.

[Vinod Krishnamoni (vinod-krishnamoni)]

It is important that we move this forward for the LT kernels as well, as the expectation is that if we go pull a image for i.Mx53, Snowball, Panda etc , the links to the source and dbgsym packages corresponding to the image should be available at the same location. Is it likely that we get this support from LT kernels for 11.10?

[Fathi Boudra (fboudra)]

No progress since a week.

> Next step now is to make sure the same changes end up at the LT packages
> that are not maintained by the dev platform, such as for IMX53, Origen and Snowball.

Add the related LTs affected projects to the bug.

[Ricardo Salveti (rsalveti)]

The needed patches to make the dbgsym package available are all at: http://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=ubuntu/linux-linaro-oneiric.git;a=shortlog

John, can you assist the LTs to get this also applied at their own kernels? The goal is to have the dbgsym package available for all kernels Linaro support.

[John Rigby (jcrigby)]

I have send the LT leads info on how to enable dbgsym packages in their kernels. Here it is for reference:

http://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=ubuntu/linux-linaro-oneiric.git;a=commitdiff;h=8035803c27c612dde7607c33dfd8d96f3c53cdb1
forces the generation of the dbgsym package even when cross compiling locally

http://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=ubuntu/linux-linaro-oneiric.git;a=commitdiff;h=4a0c288fa1eddb0b9183f5169c88cef8db99ff54
invokes objcopy to add a .gnu_debuglink section to each .ko that
points to the full unstripped .ko in the dbgsym package

http://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=ubuntu/linux-linaro-oneiric.git;a=commitdiff;h=8326f066467940b49f5f8246feb7e49e3d0b7a32
this was my first attempt at having the build system not rename the
dbgsym package when doing a PPA build, it did not work because the
test for ^Purpose: PRIMARY was true even on a PPA build.

http://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=ubuntu/linux-linaro-oneiric.git;a=commitdiff;h=e80738800fa78acad62ea09e431a0199f24030fe
this is a hack that must not be pushed to the primary archive as it
circumvents the deb to ddeb rename that the ubuntu primary build
system uses to put dbgsym packages in a differnt place to avoid
mirroring these large packages to all ubuntu mirrors

[Anmar Oueja (anmar)]

Vinod: I pined the Freescale and Samsung Landing Teams. The ST-Ericsosn LT is already looking into it.

[Eric Miao (eric.y.miao)]

Freescale LT's latest v3.1 kernel is already using the latest debian/ scripts from the platform team, and package with debug symbols is automatically generated.

[Fathi Boudra (fboudra)]

Add ARM LT in the loop.

[Lee Jones (lag)]

The ST-Ericsson LT are in the process of building a new kernel.

We'll endeavour to fix this once it's released.

[Bernie Ogden (bogden)]

I'm able to see dbgsyms packages for various kernels (e.g. all the kernels at https://launchpad.net/~linaro-maintainers/+archive/kernel/+packages) but not for Snowball (tried both https://launchpad.net/~linaro-landing-team-ste/+archive/st-ericsson-u8500-public/+packages and, just in case, https://launchpad.net/~igloocommunity-maintainers/+archive/snowball/+packages).

Is there a real problem here or am I just doing it wrong?