Enabling OS Aware Debug

This section describes setting up OS aware debug for a Zynq board running Linux from SD card, using the SDK IDE. It is assumed that users are aware of setting up a Jtag connection to the board, building Linux kernel and booting it from SD card. For details on how to set up the kernel debug, refer Attach and Debug using Xilinx System Debugger.

  1. Compile the kernel source using the following configuration options: 
    CONFIG_DEBUG_KERNEL=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO=y
  2. Launch SDK.
  3. Click Window > Open Perspective > Debug.
  4. Click Run > Debug Configurations.
  5. In the Debug Configurations dialog box, select Xilinx C/C++ application and click the New button ().
  6. Click Debug
  7. Debugging begins, with the processors in the running state.
  8. Select the Enable Linux OS Awareness option from the Debug view in the processor context.


  9. You can also perform the following actions from the menu that appears.
    • Refresh OSA Processes: Select this option to refresh the list of running processes.
    • Auto refresh on exec: When selected, all the running processes are refreshed and seen in the Debug view. When not selected, new processes are not visible in the debug view.
    • Auto refresh on suspend: When selected, all the processes will be re-synced whenever the processor suspends. When not selected, only the current process is re-synced.
    • Linux OSA File Selection: Select this option to change the symbol file.
  10. Alternatively, OS aware debugging can also be enabled using the -osa command in the Xilinx System Debugger (XSDB) command-line console. 
    osa -file <symbol-file> -fast-step -fast-exec