Issues debugging HotSpot with gdb 7.5

[Doug Simon]

At some point, gdb 7.5 on my LinuxMint (Release 14) box stopped being able to evaluate functions while debugging HotSpot. For example, calling the debug functions in debug.cpp would either hang or crash the VM. I now believe this is a bug (feature?) introduced with gdb 7.5. A workaround that has worked for me is to downgrade to gdb 7.4 by adding one of the "precise-updates" mirrors[1] to /etc/apt/sources.list and then:

$ sudo apt-get install gdb=7.4*

-Doug

[1] http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise-updates/amd64/gdb/download