Consoles and d-i

[Jurij Smakov <jurij@wooyd.org>]

Hello,

I've noticed that 2.6.38 kernel supports TIOCGDEV ioctl, which can be
used to unambigously determine the real tty device corresponding to 
/dev/console [0]. I believe that by using this we can significantly 
simplify reopen-console-linux script in rootskel [1], and use the 
device from /var/run/console-device in finish-install's 90console [2],
instead of the current method based on looking at the fds of the 
debian-installer binary.

I expect that doing it this way will (at least) fix the installs for 
machines using sunhv.c serial drivers, for which the current rootskel 
detection does not work. It is quite possible though that I'm 
overlooking some important details, so if you know of reasons why such 
changes are not a good idea, please let me know.

[0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2011/03/msg00069.html
[1] http://git.debian.org/?p=d-i/rootskel.git;a=blob;f=src/sbin/reopen-console-linux
[2] http://git.debian.org/?p=d-i/finish-install.git;a=blob;f=finish-install.d/90console

Best regards,
-- 
Jurij Smakov                                           jurij@wooyd.org
Key: http://www.wooyd.org/pgpkey/                      KeyID: C99E03CC