Description of problem: Downloaded gstreamer-1.0.7 source tarball ./configure GST_DISABLE_GST_DEBUG=no make CFLAGS="-DGST_DISABLE_GST_DEBUG" Directly run gst-launch-1.0 works: $tools/gst-launch-1.0 ERROR: pipeline could not be constructed: empty pipeline not allowed. But using gdb, it reports the file format is not recognized: $ gdb tools/gst-launch-1.0 GNU gdb (GDB) Fedora (7.5.1-38.fc18) Copyright (C) 2012 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 "i686-redhat-linux-gnu". For bug reporting instructions, please see: <http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/>... "/home/haibo/dev/gstreamer-1.0.7/tools/gst-launch-1.0": not in executable format: File format not recognized Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): GNU gdb (GDB) Fedora (7.5.1-38.fc18) gcc (GCC) 4.7.2 20121109 (Red Hat 4.7.2-8) How reproducible: As the description Steps to Reproduce: 1.Downloaded gstreamer-1.0.7 source tarball 2../configure GST_DISABLE_GST_DEBUG=no make CFLAGS="-DGST_DISABLE_GST_DEBUG" 3.$ gdb tools/gst-launch-1.0 Actual results: gst-launch-1.0": not in executable format: File format not recognized Expected results: gdb can debug it. Additional info:
What does "file tools/gst-launch-1.0" say?
tools/gst-launch-1.0 gdb tools/.libs/lt-gst-launch-1.0 tools/gst-launch-1.0 is a libtool script There are various other options how to run it, Google something about gdb-ing libtool-built programs. One could possibly do something like: gdb -ex r --args bash tools/gst-launch-1.0 But I do not recommend it, you may run also gcc under gdb etc. You are right gdb does not support inferior 'shebang'.