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While we're complaining about the sorry state of Linux, something it's desperately lacking (for those of us who ship binary-only libraries and executables) is a

While we're complaining about the sorry state of Linux, something it's desperately lacking (for those of us who ship binary-only libraries and executables) is an equivalent of Windows's PDBs or OS X's dSYMs for post-mortem debugging without bloating the shipping binaries.

waitwhat 15y ago
Is this the symbols-embedded-in-the-binary thing? Disc space is cheap, and they don't use extra RAM.
- psykotic 15y ago
  The bloating can be extraordinary. When you're shipping libraries to discerning customers (programmers, not end users), perception really does matter. A related issue which is more about the compiler than the operating system is that PDBs with Visual C++ on Windows are much more useful with highly optimized binaries than symbols (either embedded or separate) are with GCC-optimized binaries. This is understandable when you consider the different development cultures, but that doesn't make it any less of a problem for us. :)
marshray 15y ago
Yes please. Even for those of us who just deploy binaries we would really like to have a way to put them back together with the symbols and source. 99.9% of the time we don't need to, but in that 0.1% it makes a big difference.
egonk 15y ago
See http://linux.die.net/man/1/objcopy http://linux.die.net/man/1/objcopy -> --only-keep-debug Then you can open the core file as usual: gdb executable core (just be sure to have debug files in the same directory)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
AceJohnny2 15y ago
While not as straightforward as on Windows (which isn't developer oriented), it's possible on Linux and standard on most distributions (just look at all the -dbg packages of debian-based distributions). A little googling found these instructions involving objcopy to separate debug symbols: http://www.technovelty.org/code/debug-info.html http://www.technovelty.org/code/debug-info.html
ice799 15y ago
hi. linux does have this. you just strip the debug symbols out (and put them somewhere safe). then write a .gnu_debuglink section to the stripped ELF binary with a CRC that matches the stripped symbols. once something bad happens: you just take the core dump, the symbols you have tucked away, and you are able to debug just fine.
- psykotic 15y ago
  Thanks to you and others for jumping in and pointing this out! There's nothing better than being corrected when it means learning something new and solving a long-standing problem.
- marshray 15y ago
  This is great! Seems like this may have just become available in the last few years?
longlivedeath 15y ago
Have you looked at Google Breakpad? They have some support for this: http://code.google.com/p/google-breakpad/wiki/LinuxStarterGuide#Producing_symbols_for_your_application http://code.google.com/p/google-breakpad/wiki/LinuxStarterGu...

waitwhat 15y ago

Is this the symbols-embedded-in-the-binary thing? Disc space is cheap, and they don't use extra RAM.

psykotic 15y ago
The bloating can be extraordinary. When you're shipping libraries to discerning customers (programmers, not end users), perception really does matter. A related issue which is more about the compiler than the operating system is that PDBs with Visual C++ on Windows are much more useful with highly optimized binaries than symbols (either embedded or separate) are with GCC-optimized binaries. This is understandable when you consider the different development cultures, but that doesn't make it any less of a problem for us. :)

marshray 15y ago

Yes please. Even for those of us who just deploy binaries we would really like to have a way to put them back together with the symbols and source. 99.9% of the time we don't need to, but in that 0.1% it makes a big difference.

egonk 15y ago

See http://linux.die.net/man/1/objcopy http://linux.die.net/man/1/objcopy -> --only-keep-debug Then you can open the core file as usual: gdb executable core (just be sure to have debug files in the same directory)

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

AceJohnny2 15y ago

While not as straightforward as on Windows (which isn't developer oriented), it's possible on Linux and standard on most distributions (just look at all the -dbg packages of debian-based distributions). A little googling found these instructions involving objcopy to separate debug symbols: http://www.technovelty.org/code/debug-info.html http://www.technovelty.org/code/debug-info.html

ice799 15y ago

hi. linux does have this. you just strip the debug symbols out (and put them somewhere safe). then write a .gnu_debuglink section to the stripped ELF binary with a CRC that matches the stripped symbols. once something bad happens: you just take the core dump, the symbols you have tucked away, and you are able to debug just fine.

psykotic 15y ago
Thanks to you and others for jumping in and pointing this out! There's nothing better than being corrected when it means learning something new and solving a long-standing problem.
marshray 15y ago
This is great! Seems like this may have just become available in the last few years?

longlivedeath 15y ago

Have you looked at Google Breakpad? They have some support for this: http://code.google.com/p/google-breakpad/wiki/LinuxStarterGuide#Producing_symbols_for_your_application http://code.google.com/p/google-breakpad/wiki/LinuxStarterGu...