Re: [RFC] Call for review of GNU/screen support for D-I (was Re: Merge orion5x/kirkwood to flavour marvell and marvell-qnap)

[Philipp Kern <pkern@debian.org>]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 05:12:25PM +0200, Axel Beckert wrote:
> Roger Shimizu wrote:
> > For example, I know for it's necessary to have GNU/screen support for
> > armel/armhf/arm64 platform; howover, for i386/amd64 PC, it usually
> > have CRT/LCD and physical keyboard attached, so it's easily to switch
> > console by Alt-F1 ~ F4 during debian installing.So for i386/amd64
> > netboot targets, GNU/screen support is considered unnecessary.
> I disagree that screen support for i386 in unnecessary. There are
> rather popular x86 boards which only have a serial console and no VGA,
> e.g.:
> 
> http://www.pcengines.ch/alix3d2.htm (actually all but two models on
> 				     http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm)
> http://www.pcengines.ch/apu.htm
> http://www.pcengines.ch/apu2b2.htm
> 
> So I think adding screen support to D-I on at least i386, too, would
> add some value.

Also servers with IPMI that only have a virtual serial port. (Yes, there
might be console redirection, but that doesn't always work or might
require an additional license.) I think screen support is worthwhile
everywhere. Or at least not at all detrimental. I'd, however, put an
emphasis on turning it on when the terminal is a serial or remote
console. Although it might not matter too much to have it always on…

Kind regards
Philipp Kern