controlling installation from a serial terminal

["James R. Van Zandt" <jrv@vanzandt.mv.com>]

>  1) I use the boot parameter "console=ttyS0" to direct kernel messages
>  to a serial port.  Unfortunately, on the i386 architecture, the kernel
>  apparently does not leave that parameter in the environment of init.
>  Therefore, I invented a second boot parameter "control=ttyS0" to
>  communicate with init to configure the output device for user dialogs.
...
>  
>  I built a rescue disk without a root file system, for use with the
>  "ramdisk0" method.  Unfortunately, when both the above boot parameters
>  are given, the kernel never reads the root filesystem disk -
>  apparently it cannot get a keypress from either the console keyboard
>  or the serial port.

My new boot parameter is apparently not the culprit.  The rescue disk
fails if you specify "ramdisk0 console=ttyS0".  Is there a workaround
for this?

			- Jim Van Zandt