To try and find out why it got slower, more info is needed.
Is that for all projects? Including "hello world" style sample projects?
First of all, I have to be sure if there was an update to the gdb you are using?
Or any other changes, you are aware off?
- Did it get slower when you update Lazarus? (Can you get the faster experience with the old Lazarus)?
- Did this include a change in fpc version
- Did you change "project options" => stabs, dwarf-2, dwarf-3, .....
- Did you recompile packages (or fpc rtl) with debug info (so there is now more debug info)?
Is this just stepping, or other things too?
Does it help if you do *ALL* of the below:
- IMPORTANT: Open the history window, and use the power button to switch it off)
- clear the watches (or use the power button to switch it off)
- close locals window
- close the stack window
The issue with using GDB has always been: speed vs correctness.
To evaluate a watch, so that a meaningful result is displayed (and pascal input is understood) the debugger must sent lots of commands to gdb, that takes time.
There were a few updates to stepping, but nothing to major that I could remember.
E.g. Stepping F7/F8 over exceptions (when the debugger does not stop for the exception) would not pause at the end of the step, but just keep running. This was fixed, it does sent some extra commands to gdb, but in my tests was not noticeable slowing it down.
Not sure how far back that was added, but its not been that recent.