Re: boot-floppies 2.2.11 for Alpha building now, testers needed
David Huggins-Daines wrote:
> Adam C Powell IV <hazelsct@mit.edu> writes:
>
> > My mistake. I was trying to install on a serial console machine, it boots fine on an LX164 with a
> > video card.
>
> Yeah, that's a known issue. The problem is that the kernel does not
> detect whether it has been booted from a serial console or not, and so
> it will send output to the screen unless you give it a "console=ttyS0"
> (or whichever serial port) argument on the kernel command line.
Oh yeah, forgot about the console boot arg. Sorry, I'll try that tomorrow.
> The goal is eventually to do this guessing either in the bootloader or
> the kernel. This is tricky to do in aboot because the CTB (console
> terminal block) is seriously underspecified. (I speculate that this
> is because many (most?) implementations of SRM take input on the
> serial port *and* the keyboard if both are present, though they only
> sends output to one at a time). It should be pretty easy to do in
> MILO since MILO is actually a console rather than a bootloader :)
Cool. Or have the user specify "console=" in the args at the MILO prompt, though that would make the boot line a
good bit more complicated than "boot fd0:". But those brave enough to do a serial console install will get over
it. :-)
> > The 2.0.36 slink kernel showed startup message on the serial port, can that option be turned on for
> > potato too? I realize it may require a different root image, as did slink...
>
> Hm, that's interesting. So 2.0 would automatically detect a serial
> console? Or was there a separate boot disk for it? (I seem to
> remember that there was no "console on serial port" config option in
> 2.0)
Yup. I use the same slink rescue floppy, and same boot args, for LX164 with kb/video card as with serial port,
though the root image is different, see the "Headless install..." thread on this list of 11/22/99. Somehow, it
knows to print the startup messages to the right place, and prompt for the root image in the right place too.
Pretty cool.
> > --- /mirrors/debian/dists/potato/main/disks-alpha/2.2.11-2000-04-21/README.txt Fri Apr 21 14:22:02 2000
> > +++ README.txt Tue Apr 25 10:11:03 2000
>
> I'll apply this ASAP.
Great, thanks very much!
I still need to get around to checking the Alpha MILO documentation in boot-floppies (and adding a serial console
piece :-), might happen sometime next week...
Zeen,
-Adam P.
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