Improve GDB's first user experience by reducing "print_gdb_version" output
Guinevere Larsen via Gdb <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.gdb.devel |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Hi all, I've been thinking about how to improve the user experience, especially for first time users. One thing that stands out to me is the very verbose first output a new user is greeted with: GNU gdb (GDB) 17.0.50.20250526-git Copyright (C) 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html> This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Type "show copying" and "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "x86_64-pc-linux-gnu". Type "show configuration" for configuration details. For bug reporting instructions, please see: <https://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/>. Find the GDB manual and other documentation resources online at: <http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/documentation/>. For help, type "help". Type "apropos word" to search for commands related to "word". (gdb) For the *vast* majority of our users, only 4 of those lines are useful at all: the GDB version (to ask for help), where to find the documentation, the "help" command, and the "apropos" command. Arguably, where to report bugs could be useful, but the worst ones already print it and otherwise users are incredibly unlikely to report them (especially given the email requirements to create an account). Worthy of note, the important lines are the last ones, so even if a new user was eager enough to start reading everything, they'd likely gloss over everything assuming this entire thing is just copyright. I propose that the text be updated to something similar to this: GNU gdb (GDB) 17.0.50.20250526-git For a list of commands, use "help" For all commands related to a certain word, use "apropos word" For a thorough explanation of what GDB can do, check the manual at: <http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/documentation/> For information on GDB's copyright, warranty or configuration, use "show copying/warranty/configuration" (gdb) This makes the text smaller, the start is more focused on what most users will be interested in, and keeps all the very relevant information still available for those interested. I'm sending this here in case there is some rule that forces us to write the copyright or free software status at initialization, before spending the time to turn this into a patch. -- Cheers, Guinevere Larsen She/Her/Hers