HowTo use the CDT to navigate Linux kernel source

Here are some steps that I've found to get the CDT to work well with the Linux kernel source. If you exclude some of these steps, it may still work to a large degree, but some things may not work exactly right; for example it may find the wrong include file for a C file.

Anyway, as you do these steps, I think you may understand how they assist the indexer to do a good job for the Linux kernel source.

1. Download and install Eclipse plus the CDT.
2. Configure and build your kernel. This can be done before or after downloading and installing Eclipse.
3. Start up Eclipse.
4. Click File->New->C Project
5. Fill in a project name like my_kernel
6. Uncheck the Use default location box and type in the root directory of your kernel into the Location box.
7. In the Project type: pane, click the Makefile project and select Empty Project
8. On the right side, select Linux GCC
9. Click Finish
10. Eclipse will start indexing the kernel source files, so double click on the little moving "activity" icon in the lower right part of the Eclipse window.
11. Click the square red stop button on the indexer.
12. Right click the top-level project in the Project Explorer pane on the left, and select Properties at the bottom.
13. Click the Manage Configurations at the top right.
14. Select Linux GCC (if it isn't already) then click New...
15. Give it a name like Linux config and a similar description, and click OK
16. Select your new configuration, and click Set Active and then OK
17. Select Resource, and then in the Text file encoding section, select Other and ISO-8859-1 in the box, then click Apply
18. Click on Indexer and then clear out the Files to index up-front box.
19. Select Use active build configuration at the bottom, and click Apply
20. Click on Paths and Symbols
21. Select the Includes tab and then select GNU C
22. Click Add...
23. Click Workspace... then select your project's include directory
24. Do another Add, Workspace and add arch/architecture/include, e.g., arch/powerpc/include
25. Click the # Symbols tab
26. Click Add...
27. Set the name to __KERNEL__
28. Set the value to 1 and click OK
29. Click the Source Location tab
30. Click the twisty for your project.
31. Select the Filter item and click Edit Filter...
32. Click Add Multiple... and then select all of the arch/* directories in your kernel source that will not be used (i.e. all the ones that are not for the architecture you are using)
33. Click OK and OK again to dismiss that dialog.
34. Click OK on the Properties dialog.
35. Right click on the project again and select Index then select Rebuild
36. It will take about 20 minutes or so to complete.

Corey Ashford cjashfor@us.ibm.com