gdbserver version quandry

[John Williams <jwilliams@itee.uq.edu.au>]

Hi folks,

I have recently completed a port of uClinux to the Xilinx Microblaze 
soft-processor architecture.

http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~jwilliams/mblaze-uclinux.

I am now investigating providing gdbserver support for this architecture.

Xilinx ported gcc 2.95 and gdb 5.0 (20010428-1) to support microblaze - 
as I understand it they have no intention of moving forward to a newer 
version of gdb.

So, I think I'm stuck with porting gdbserver from gdb5.0, right?  I know 
this is ancient history, but I don't think I'm about to undertake the 
job of adding a new arch to gdb 6.0...

Some pertinent facts:

1- Miles Bader, who did the v850 port of uClinux and gdbserver, has a 
nice clean script and patch to morph gdbserver 5.1 to support uClinux.

2 - The standard uClinux distribution supported by Snapgear, has a 
hacked version of gdbserver 4.12.3 to support uClinux, but hard-coded 
for m68k arch support only.

So, the question is:  Would it be cleaner for me to

(a) Back-port gdbserver 5.1 to support the gdb 5.0 interface;
(b) Forward port and Clean up the m68k uClinux gdbserver 4.12.3 to 
support the gdb5.0 and microblaze; or
(c) Start from scratch with gdbserver 5.0 and provide microblaze support 
directly?

I'm thinking (a) or (c), depending on how much changed in the 
gdb<->gdbserver communication protocol between 5.0 and 5.1.   Is there 
any online documentation on this - in particular regarding how it 
changed from 5.0 to 5.1?

Superficially - Miles' scripts and patches don't apply cleanly to 
gdbserver 5.0 - some file/directory structures have changed.

Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

John