Howto use AVR Dragon Jtag on Linux (Avarice + avr-gdb +DDD)

I bought a couple of months ago a little AVR Dragon card. My initial plan was to use it for debuging programs with the embbeded JTAG. But I run into several issue with that, mainly because the lack of doc on this topic. So, here we are ;)

The AVR Dragon is nice because you can use it as a small developpement device without any other requirement: Simply drop the needed ATMega on the board, some little wrapping for : Jtag + power supply.

As you can see, this is compact and nothing else is needed. The power supply come from the USB port, and I soldered a DIP on the board.. and that’s it.

I use the Jtag connector, so now I can use a real debugger instead of playing with the UART. Simply put a breakpoint, and enjoy :) By this way, I figure out that most of the time I simply push some stuff in arrays, and inspect them with debugger. This is really efficient. For example, last week I need to fix a timing issue with a IR sensor, simply wrap the little board, and push all interrupts in a array with the related timing. Of course, this can be done with a serial connection too, but it will take more time, and even worst if you encounter a bug, you will have to find where is it (the UART printf, or the code itself) ..

So, how to use this with a Linux OS ?

First you need to use AVaRICE to program the ATMega with a command like this :

avarice -g -j usb --erase --program --file main.hex :4242

Here the result:

AVaRICE flash the hex file to the ATMega, and wait for a GDB connection on port 4242. GDB is fine, but not really visual ;)

Let’s take a look at DDD

To use DDD with avr-gdb (the gdb for AVR), you need to edit a config file, for example gdb.conf and put this in :

file main.out
target remote localhost:4242

And the final command, just launch DDD like this :

ddd --debugger "avr-gdb -x gdb.conf"

Next step: Simply place some breakpoint, and the press “Cont” inue button in DDD. Et voilà :

I hope this little tuto will help people looking for a nice AVR debuger for the AVR on Linux (or any OSS system). The AVR Dragon is definitively a must have for low budget user in AVR scene.

Enjoy bug ? :)

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admin November 30th, 2008


9 Responses to “Howto use AVR Dragon Jtag on Linux (Avarice + avr-gdb +DDD)”

  1. # adminon 30 Nov 2008 at 5:52 pm

    Somebody tell me that, we can do the same with Eclipse. If somebody know how, please post here ..

  2. # Rene Dudfieldon 01 Dec 2008 at 12:31 am

    Awesome article! Thanks.

  3. # adminon 01 Dec 2008 at 12:56 am

    Thanks :)

  4. # Jejeon 19 Jan 2009 at 12:38 pm

    hello jkx.

    OFFTOPIC:
    I like the window style on these pictures.
    What WM and theme are You using?

  5. # adminon 19 Jan 2009 at 1:41 pm

    OT: The WM is the xfce one, aka xfwm4, with Gaudy theme.

  6. # Miguelon 05 Feb 2009 at 9:20 pm

    Hi all,

    I have been trying out gdb with avarice but I got some errors when debugging. The fact is that I get no errors if I don’t use any functions in my code but it just doesn’t read the proper values if I do use them.

    Anyone has had any problems about the same issue?

    Thanks in advance!!

    Miguel.

    PS: I had disabled optimization code parameters already in gcc-avr

  7. # Miguelon 05 Feb 2009 at 9:31 pm

    by the way, how did you compile your code?

    this is my compilation command:

    avr-gcc -g -mmcu=atmega16 -c adcTest.c;avr-gcc -g -mmcu=atmega16 -o adcTest.elf adcTest.o;avr-objcopy -j .text -j .data -O ihex adcTest.elf adcTest.hex

    Am I missing any flags?

    I hope that helps.

    Miguel.

  8. # adminon 19 Feb 2009 at 10:45 pm

    Miguel, your flag looks good. I don’t see the issue

  9. # WinGDBon 01 Sep 2009 at 12:43 am

    Hello,

    If somebody would be interested in debugging with use of gdb under VisualStudio, then please check our site http://www.wingdb.com.

    Kind regards,
    WinGDB team

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