Return-Path: smlieu Return-Path: Received: by cygnus.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA08971; Wed, 21 Jul 93 13:23:56 PDT Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 13:23:56 PDT From: smlieu (Sun Ming Lieu) Message-Id: <9307212023.AA08971@cygnus.com> To: engnews-distrib ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vol 2 No 7 INSIDE CYGNUS ENGINEERING July 1993 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inside Cygnus Engineering (ICE) is published monthly for customers of Cygnus Support. Our objective is to provide a relevant but informal summary of news and ongoing activities. Please send all comments, suggestions, and subscription requests to engnews@cygnus.com. NEW AND ONGOING DEVELOPMENTS ---------------------------- The last month has been a tremendously exciting time here at Cygnus Support. In addition to our first million dollar month in bookings, we have also announced a number of key development and distribution relationships. New partners include Novell, Advanced Micro Devices, Lynx Real Time Systems, and Tivoli Systems. 1. Support for Processor Independent Netware We are working with Novell to provide GNU development tools support for Unixware, and for Netware in a processor independent fashion. Developers using these tools will be able to build NetWare applications that can be deployed on any of Novell's Processor Independent Netware (PIN) platforms. PIN platforms that are targeted currently include Digital Equipment Corporation's Alpha AXP, Hewlett-Packard's Precision Architecture Risc, Intel's 386 and 486, and Sun Microsystems's SPARC architectures. These tools will become part of our standard progressive releases. They will also be included in Novell's Appware developer offerings. These tools will be available in the first quarter of 1994. 2. Widespread Enthusiasm for DejaGnu DejaGnu continues to attract attention and interest in both testing and standards communities. It was shown to the POSIX committee on testing at the recent Usenix and POSIX meetings where it was received with great enthusiasm. After minor modifications, DejaGnu is now fully compliant with the proposed POSIX standard on test frameworks. It also meets the major requirements specified by X/Open for the yet-to-be-implemented version 2 of the TET testing framework. We are working with the X/Open people to make TET testsuites run within DejaGnu, and to free the TET software and the X/Open POSIX testsuite. We see DejaGnu as a strong catalyst to bring together various automated testing efforts in one common and open reference standard - leveraging the power of free software in this new arena. We will be participating in many discussions with these standards groups in the near future, and hope to report more exciting news back to this forum. 3. GDB GUI Plans We are seeing increasing serious interest in a graphical user interface (GUI) for GDB, and your response from the Customer Forum query in May (summarized below) was also most encouraging. We have therefore begun the design and specification of the next version of GDB, GDB 5, which will allow for multiple user interfaces (UI), including graphical user interfaces based on different windowing systems. Our first step is to define the major internal functions of GDB in the form of a library, libgdb. At present, gdb uses printf's for output. Functions within libgdb will allow interface-independent output. Different UI's can then be constructed based on this library and the interface and windowing system of choice. We expect libgdb to be available in beta form in the fourth quarter of this year. We will also be developing various UI's for GDB. We currently intend to maintain a text-based UI using the current GDB command set, We also expect to provide support in X and Microsoft Windows. Plans for the UI architecture and implementation have not yet been finalized. 4. In The Works We have begun work to provide GNU tool support for LynxOS from Lynx Real-Time Systems. Targeted configurations include native support on LynxOS running on m68k and i386 systems, and cross development support from Sun 4 (SPARC) workstations. We will be discussing more details about levels of support, schedules, etc. in future issues of ICE. Our collection of free instruction set simulators continues to grow. We have just received the MIPS simulator, SPIM, from James Larus of the University of Wisconsin. This will be integrated into our sources shortly. One of our engineers has written a SPARC simulator in his spare time. We are particularly interested in an m68k simulator for our embedded users, and a 386 simulator for MS-DOS emulation. SUPPORT ACTIVITIES ------------------- In addition to new development, a significant part of our engineering resources is devoted to answering questions, fixing problems in the GNU software, and providing a range of support services to our customers. 1. Q2 Shipment Delayed Due to unexpected delays in duplication, we are just beginning to distribute the Q2 release instead of two weeks ago as planned. We apologize for the inconvenience. 2. Software maintenance status The following table shows the maintenance statistics for the last five weeks. We continue to need your help: please let us know when you agree that a problem has been fixed so that we can move it from a "feedback" state to a "closed" state. # # # # # # Date Open Analzd Fdback Closed Suspnd Total ------------------------------------------------------------ 06/21/93 412 187 719 1,330 129 2,777 07/19/93 436 211 587 1,543 131 2,908 ------------------------------------------------------------ Change +24 +24 -132 +213 +2 +131 OTHER ITEMS ----------- 1. Cygnus-AMD Promotional Campaign Cygnus and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) have announced a joint promotional campaign based on the AMD 29k evaluation board and the Cygnus Sun 4 and DOS x 29k Cross Development Toolkit. This campaign provides a low-cost, quick startup package containing an AMD board (starting first with the 29205, and then the 29200, 2924x, etc.), the AMD 29k architecture simulator, the AMD 29k instruction set simulator, and our Q2 progressive release with full sources and prebuilt binaries, for the price of $595. Software support contracts can be purchased, if required, at our standard prices. The package will be sold through AMD and Cygnus Telesales organizations, and through major AMD distributors. As part of this effort, we will be making our first CD distribution. 2. Partnership with Tivoli Systems, Inc. Our Cygnus Network Security (CNS) product is now available for the Tivoli Management Environment from Tivoli Systems, Inc. We are part of Tivoli's Partners Program, a program committed to providing an open system and network management architecture and "best-of-breed" tools. Other participants in the program include Hewlett-Packard, Sybase, Legent, AIM Technologies, and over 20 other companies. Although CNS is still a relatively small part of our business, participating in open systems programs supports our business model of open reference standards in the form of free software (freely redistributable, source code available). 3. Who's working on gcc? The top contributors to gcc, as measured by the number of ChangeLog entries, are: Since May 1990 Since 1993 ------------------------------------------------------------ 1916 (36%) mit.edu 517 (46%) cygnus.com 1291 (25%) cygnus.com 267 (24%) mit.edu 753 (14%) nyu.edu 76 ( 7%) nyu.edu 243 ( 5%) osf.org 63 ( 6%) utah.edu 214 ( 4%) dg.com 33 ( 3%) osf.org 119 ( 2%) cactus.org 22 ( 2%) cactus.org 107 ( 2%) utah.edu 18 ( 2%) appli.se 623 (12%) all others 118 (11%) all others ------------------------------------------------------------ 5266 1114 Of course, ChangeLog entries per se do not necessarily correlate with the magnitude and contribution of the changes. However, it is a useful metric for the level of activities in gcc. 4. GDB GUI Responses In our May issue, we asked about your interest in having a graphical user interface for GDB. A summary of the responses is given below. Additional ideas and suggestions are most welcome. Please send mail to engnews@cygnus.com. 1. Would this (having a GUI) be useful to you? All respondents were in favour of having a GUI, especially those not using emacs gdb-mode. X-based alternatives suggested included XXGDB and UPS. 2. If so, what are the most important features you would like to see? These are the common features that were mentioned. - Have all capabilities of emacs gdb-mode, especially single stroke command shortcuts, multiple windows for source and include files, and for the gdb command buffer. - Be able to change source code and immediate restart recompilation. - Multiple windows, especially for stack backtrace, subroutine parameters, variable values. - Have graphical support for linked list debugging - Have an assembly mode where C and assembly are displayed together, and where processor registers (where possible) and stack backtrace are shown at assembly level. - Provide better C++ debug environment. Some examples of popular GUIs you suggested that we look at include the SGI debugger, UPS, and the HP 68k cross debugger. 3. What windowing system would you like to see supported for this GUI? Most customers preferred X, with some recommendations for Tcl/Tk. No other windowing system was selected. Other comments: One customer encouraged us to focus our resources first on multi-platform support and the low-level functionality of the toolset. This is consistent with our plan to first define and develop the libgdb library and interface. 5. Customer Forum We value your suggestions, and would like your response to the following questions (to engnews@cygnus.com). We will publish summaries of answers of general interest in a future issue. 1. What is your preferred medium for receiving software releases? 2. Do you expect that to change in 6 months? 12 months? If so, what do you see being your new medium of choice? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Cygnus Support 1937 Landings Drive One Kendall Square Mountain View, CA 94043 Cambridge, MA 02139 +1 415 903 1400 voice +1 617 494 1040 voice +1 415 903 0122 fax +1 617 494 1325 fax ---------------------------------------------------------------------