Section #1. Kernel Debuggers
The instruction-level Kernel DeBugger (kdb) and the source-level Kernel GNU DeBugger (kgdb) are the two main Linux kernel debuggers. Whether to include a debugger as part of the stock kernel has been an oft-debated point in kernel mailing lists, but a lightweight version of kgdb has finally been integrated with the mainline kernel starting with the 2.6.26 release. Even if you prefer to stay away from the seemingly esoteric operation of kernel debuggers, you can glean information about kernel panics and peek at kernel variables via the plain GNU DeBugger (gdb). JTAG debuggers use hardware-assisted debugging and are powerful but expensive.
Kernel debuggers make kernel internals more transparent. You can single-step ...
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