[March 3, 2003]

Green Hills MULTI Development Environment Available For Linux Apps, Kernels, Embedded Devices

Green Hills Software announced the availability of its industry leading MULTI Integrated Development Environment for embedded Linux systems. MULTI provides one of the world's most advanced environments for debugging Linux applications, the Linux kernel and Linux device drivers. MULTI works out of the box with existing GNU development tool chains, including those used for native Intel/Pentium, embedded MIPS, and embedded PowerPC environments.

"As Linux becomes more pervasive in embedded applications," said John Carbone, vice president of marketing at Green Hills Software, "developers will demand tools with debug capabilities that are comparable to those of mainstream embedded Integrated Development Environments. MULTI allows embedded developers currently using GNU compilers to replace their unsophisticated gdb debuggers with a full-featured, highly optimized debug environment."

"Our 2002 research again shows Green Hills Software to be one of the leading compiler and debugger companies in the embedded marketplace," said Chris Lanfear, project manager for VDC's Embedded Systems Research Group. "We attribute this to the company's extensive tool chain and wide range of applications and processors supported."

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. With MULTI, developers can:

• Debug any number of processes and threads with the same instance of the
  MULTI debugger.
• Debug any combination of processes and threads, each in its own color-coded debug window.
• Automatically launch a debug window following the fork of a new process or the creation of a new thread, making it easy to debug the startup code of threads and processes.
• See a list of all active processes and threads and choose any one to debug at any time. 
• Automatically read in and debug a new executable program when an exec operation occurs.
• Set per-thread breakpoints.
• Debug signals by selectively masking, ignoring, or stopping when various signals are sent to a process or thread.
• Debug shared libraries, even if they are bound dynamically.
• Save and restore breakpoints across debug sessions on a per-application or per-shared-library basis.
• Find performance bottlenecks and analyze code for testing by using the MULTI profiler to collect and graphically display profiling information such as time spent in application code, application call count, and call graph structure. Code coverage also can be analyzed on the development system to find untested sections and/or document coverage for quality assurance. 
• Locate elusive memory errors such as memory leaks, illegal memory deallocations, and writing beyond allocated memory areas. 
• Debug applications incrementally. MULTI reads debugging information as needed on a per-module basis, enabling even very large applications to be loaded very quickly. Most debuggers require all debug information to be fully loaded before allowing the user to begin debugging, introducing significant delays for large programs.
• Efficiently parse source code and cross-reference functions and variables. With a single click, developers can obtain a list of the definition, assignments, and other references to functions and variables. Developers can also use the browser to place breakpoints at all locations where a particular variable is modified.

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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