KGDB: Request to merge KGDB

This is a request to merge KGDB into the mainline kernel.

These KGDB patches are against the tip of kernel of the tree on October 15, 2007. I am continuing to update the for_mm branch against the tip of the tree with the hope to merge KGDB into the kernel, pending the review of the individual pieces.

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/jwessel/linux-2.6-kgdb.git;a=shortlog;h=for_mm

As of right now KGDB is comprised of 21 different patches adding in the core api and docs first and then working up to add drivers and arch specific support to KGDB. The patches were broken down into logical pieces for review and comments.

The intent of the KGDB patches is to unify the KGDB support across all the architectures that elect to implement it KGDB functionality by providing a common core and an arch specific stub. For quite some time there has been different features and uses of KGDB across the most popular architectures. Having a common core that takes care of protocol parsing and the typical use case of software breakpoints should eliminate the inconsistencies across the archs as well as making it easier to add KGDB support to a new arch.

These KGDB patches include support for KGDB over ethernet and unify the syntax and usage for setting up kgdb over rs232.

This series of KGDB patches covers the archs: i386, x86_64, ia64, arm, mips, sh, ppc and powerpc.

After the merge of this patch set, any other arch can implement KGDB support in the future by making use of the KGDB core by updating the kgdb kconfig file and creating the arch specific stub.

Thanks,
Jason