[ros-kernel] Debugging for beginners

[Björn Fischer]

Hi,
as I'm quite new to ROS I am digging myself through the list archive 
right now. I now have a running version of ROS (on real hardware because 
bochs is too slow and VMWare too expensive). I now would like to do 
debugging. As reading through the list archive I got many information 
about debugging, but somehow that was a bit too confusing for me and I 
still have questions:

1) Do I have to use GDB for debugging or is it replaceable by pice (and 
which one is easyer to use)?
2) Must I do remote debugging via a COM-Port or can I use the same 
machine for running and debugging ROS (pice documentation said CTRL-D 
changes to debug mode...)?
3) What do most people use to debug ROS (since I don't want to be the 
only one using a special method or technique...)

Greetings

Björn