diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 5fa37a432238eba44bbbd8446445218cf1a4bc79..afdbc4c8a7f7d561a7d33f3ebb048f1b066c3fa8 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ GLUON_SITE_VERSION ?= $(shell scripts/getversion.sh '$(GLUON_SITEDIR)')
 
 GLUON_MULTIDOMAIN ?= 0
 GLUON_AUTOREMOVE ?= 0
-GLUON_DEBUG ?= 0
+GLUON_DEBUG ?= 1
 GLUON_MINIFY ?= 1
 
 # Can be overridden via environment/command line/... to use the Gluon
diff --git a/docs/user/getting_started.rst b/docs/user/getting_started.rst
index daa7f537146c7e06f371702f08ed3b2ce5351523..332ffc99177270a77c82630f95dea651c6d936b9 100644
--- a/docs/user/getting_started.rst
+++ b/docs/user/getting_started.rst
@@ -255,8 +255,17 @@ GLUON_AUTOREMOVE
   as it significantly increases incremental build times.
 
 GLUON_DEBUG
-  Setting ``GLUON_DEBUG=1`` will provide firmware images including debugging symbols usable with GDB or
-  similar tools. Requires a device or target with at least 16 MB of flash space, e.g. `x86-64`. Unset by default.
+  The following values are supported:
+
+  - ``0``: Remove symbol tables and debug information as well as most section and other
+    information not strictly necessary for execution using ``sstrip``. This saves a small amount
+    of flash space over the default ``strip`` command (roughly 70kiB for ath79), but makes any
+    kind of binary analysis much more difficult, as common tools like objdump and gdb can't
+    handle such files at all.
+  - ``1``: Remove symbol tables and debug information from binaries using the standard ``strip``
+    command. This is the default.
+  - ``2``:  Include debugging symbols usable with GDB or similar tools in all binaries of the image.
+    Requires a device or target with at least 16 MB of flash space, e.g. ``x86-64``.
 
 GLUON_MINIFY
   Setting ``GLUON_MINIFY=0`` will omit the minification of scripts during the build process. By
diff --git a/targets/generic b/targets/generic
index 80beb7ee92adefc81959d2359fc7d36c9deb3b09..125375e30b672938c2ee3324cbc4dc27b9f7be36 100644
--- a/targets/generic
+++ b/targets/generic
@@ -84,13 +84,16 @@ config('GLUON_MULTIDOMAIN', istrue(env.GLUON_MULTIDOMAIN))
 
 config('AUTOREMOVE', istrue(env.GLUON_AUTOREMOVE))
 
-if istrue(env.GLUON_DEBUG) then
+if (tonumber(env.GLUON_DEBUG) or 0) > 1 then
 	config('DEBUG', true)
 	config('NO_STRIP', true)
 	config('USE_STRIP', false)
 	config('USE_SSTRIP', false)
 
 	try_config('TARGET_ROOTFS_PARTSIZE', 500)
+elseif istrue(env.GLUON_DEBUG) then
+	config('USE_STRIP', true)
+	config('USE_SSTRIP', false)
 end
 
 config('GLUON_MINIFY', istrue(env.GLUON_MINIFY))