I’m planning a board development around the NXP LPC2478. I want to use GCC / GDB for development and I could get the Segger J-Link ARM with GDB / RDI bundle, but I’m wondering just how good is OpenOCD’s support of the J-Link ARM?
I need this for debugging and flash programming, and I’ve read postings here from people with problems in both areas. Can I expect this combination to work fairly seamlessly?
Also, does flash programming with OpenOCD / J-Link extend to off-chip flash? Or is this done with the likes of U-boot?
The best bet for OpenOCD is a JTAG based on FT2232 - JLink is supported, but there are some issues with that. Besides that, FT2232 based JTAG is cheaper [;
Support has been added to OpenOCD for the SEGGER J-Link. Both OpenOCD and the GDB Server should be able to program the flash of your LPC2478. The advantage of working with the JLink is that you are not locked into OpenOCD. If you run into any problems with OpenOCD you can easily switch to the SEGGER GDB Server. You can even run the GDB Server freely if it is being used for non-commercial use (or for evaluation). The GDB Server is much faster than OpenOCD because it takes full advantage of the intelligence within the J-Link. There is also a much reduced cost J-Link EDU designed specifically for educational and non-commercial use which includes the GDB Server and the SEGGER Flash Breakpoint module enabling the use of unlimited breakpoints while debugging in Flash (removes the hardware breakpoint limit).