How entwined is it with Linux specific APIs? Eg, how hard would it be to port to FreeBSD?
Show HN: Uscope, a new Linux debugger written from scratch
41–50 of 133 posts
Re: Show HN: Uscope, a new Linux debugger written from scratch
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
GDB is awful and a replacement is sorely needed. It's buggy and slow and feature poor and has a terrible UI and a terrible API which makes all the frontends terrible in turn. I haven't looked at its code but I'm betting it's terrible too.
I haven't tried UScope yet (I shall), but I don't agree with you about GDB. I don't find it especially buggy unless doing niche things like non-stop debugging -- I guess you may well have a different experience though. I think the UI is much maligned unfairly. It has a few quirks, but ever used git? For the most part it's fairly consistent and well thought through. By terrible API you mean the Python? I admit it can…
> What features do you most miss?
one time I wanted to write generic printers. E.g. printer of any type which support C++ iterators. But gdb can't call C++ functions from python api (excepting weird hacks like evaluating `print c.begin()` and catching it output). Although this is not very useful because most of types we use changes very rarely, that's why writing printers is only matter of time.
Another feature is breakpoints which sleep next N seconds. We have breakpoints which can skip next N triggering, but similar with time will be useful to me to debug mouse events in gui apps, etc.
Also the most new gdb still have problems with tab-tab completion (and even Ctrl-C don't return control immediately).
Also lately I often meet problem cannot insert breakpoint 0. Probably this is a bug, because answers from stackoverflow isn't relevant for me
Re: Show HN: Uscope, a new Linux debugger written from scratch
#43> The available Linux debuggers are gdb and lldb. They both suck. They crash all the time, don't understand the data types I care about, and they don't make the data I need available at my fingertips as quickly as possible.
Okay, so this is the author's answer to the most important question: "why?"
For me this is a serious issue, making strong statements without any single backing example. If you experience crashes, please report to the maintainers - i guarantee that you won't be ignored. You say that it's missing some data that you need? Fine, but be precise - what data?
Otherwise it sounds like a "yeah, let's make a project for fun and pretend that it's serious by finding sort-of-justification/use case" (i'm not telling that it is the case for you - i'm telling that it sounds like it, based on your own description).
Also, would you feel nice if i put in my project's README a note that the project of you, the one that you put your effort to, "sucks"?
Re: Show HN: Uscope, a new Linux debugger written from scratch
#44This opinion is not backed by facts, any insight about linux (or even the languages in question), or even related to this post. Nevertheless, I wonder if it was a good idea to allow rust contributions to the linux project. From all of the bits and pieces I read about zig (including this project), I feel like it would have been better aligned (than rust) to pick up where the mainly C codebase left off.
Not really. Zig's answer to safety is mostly based on runtime panics, and the kernel really, really hates panics. As such, the only thing left is better ergonomics, and that's not really worth the effort to switch. Rust isn't being adopted because it's an easier language to code in, and in fact it's being adopted in spite of the fact that it's harder to code in. And that's because to some kernel devs, the promise of…
Rust also has runtime panics (e.g. indexing outside the bounds of a slice) - how does kernel Rust handle that?
Re: Show HN: Uscope, a new Linux debugger written from scratch
#45Looks promising -- it's about time, I haven't been satisfied with any debugger since the days of Periscope! https://www.os2museum.com/files/docs/periscope/periscope-man...
Somehow this brought the memory of Numega's awesome SoftICE!
Oh yea, we used both SoftICE and Periscope. I loved the pushbutton to fire off an NMI directly on the ISA bus. It was sad when your device driver crashed but it was a fun experience to push that button.
Re: Show HN: Uscope, a new Linux debugger written from scratch
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
GDB is awful and a replacement is sorely needed. It's buggy and slow and feature poor and has a terrible UI and a terrible API which makes all the frontends terrible in turn. I haven't looked at its code but I'm betting it's terrible too.
I haven't tried UScope yet (I shall), but I don't agree with you about GDB. I don't find it especially buggy unless doing niche things like non-stop debugging -- I guess you may well have a different experience though. I think the UI is much maligned unfairly. It has a few quirks, but ever used git? For the most part it's fairly consistent and well thought through. By terrible API you mean the Python? I admit it can…
It's been a while since I bothered to try to use it because my experience has been so bad. So I don't remember all my specific complaints about bugs and features. I do remember multi process debugging was a big hole last time I looked. In contrast, I was able to get multi process debugging working really well in Visual Studio.
By terrible API I mean GDB/MI that frontends use. I'm sure people will come try to defend it but the proof is in the pudding and I don't think it's a coincidence that every GDB frontend sucks.
Re: Show HN: Uscope, a new Linux debugger written from scratch
#47Everyone here seems to thing GDB is awful. It's been a while for me but I remember using front-ends like Eclipse's CDT or similar and didn't find that experience so bad. Do most people use GDB straight-up? I haven't done that in probably 15 years although it's nice to have a lightweight command line on small embedded systems.
Re: Show HN: Uscope, a new Linux debugger written from scratch
#48He's live on twitch right now demoing this on zig showtime: https://www.twitch.tv/kristoff_it
Re: Show HN: Uscope, a new Linux debugger written from scratch
#49> The available Linux debuggers are gdb and lldb. They both suck. They crash all the time, don't understand the data types I care about, and they don't make the data I need available at my fingertips as quickly as possible. Okay, so this is the author's answer to the most important question: "why?" For me this is a serious issue, making strong statements without any single backing example. If you experience crashes,…
I'd rather the time taken enumerating the deficiencies of existing debuggers be spent building something better instead. I doubt many people that have used gdb/lldb need convincing that that's possible. If it is needed, Microsoft's windbg (far from what's possible but light years ahead of gdb/lldb) is a proof by construction.
Re: Show HN: Uscope, a new Linux debugger written from scratch
#50> The available Linux debuggers are gdb and lldb. They both suck. They crash all the time, don't understand the data types I care about, and they don't make the data I need available at my fingertips as quickly as possible. Okay, so this is the author's answer to the most important question: "why?" For me this is a serious issue, making strong statements without any single backing example. If you experience crashes,…
There are almost 4000 open issues on gdb reported more than five years ago.
In this conversation are reports of an annoying bug that requires a user patch gdb and it's existed for almost twenty years.
It was years before anyone was even assigned because of a bug in their bug tracking system, and they haven't addressed any further comments over the decades.