serial console install issues

[Richard Hector <richard@walnut.gen.nz>]

Hi all,

I'm commenting here partly because I don't know which bit of software is 
at fault for each problem ...

I have a PCEngines APU4, which has a serial port and no video hardware.

I'm using a USB-serial adapter, with a null-modem cable.

I'm using a Buster netinst USB stick - 10.1 I think - according to the 
cdrom lines in sources.list

My first issue was that xfce4-terminal (by default) traps F10, which I 
needed for the Coreboot/Seabios boot menu, but I've since discovered 
that's an option in the preferences. I got around that initially by 
using xterm.

My first try was with minicom. It connected ok, but it appeared the 
arrow keys weren't working, and the line drawing characters weren't 
displaying correctly either.

When I discovered screen acts as a serial terminal, that behaved rather 
better (colour, and nice line drawing characters), but still problems 
with arrows.

Then finally, I can't remember how, I discovered that it didn't like 
displaying on a 24-line terminal, which most of the terminals I tried 
default to.

With a 25-line terminal, it all seems useable - and Minicom mostly 
displays it ok too (not quite right; the blue box isn't quite drawn 
properly, and seems too low on the screen?

It then took me some time to realise that I needed to both add 
console=ttyS0,115200n8 at the end of the kernel line, and apparently 
remove the 'vga=xxx' part earlier in the line. I guess it's not possible 
for SysLinux to detect that?

Anyway, as I say I'm not sure whether the issues are in the terminal 
emulation (either the xterm or comms program), or in the menu system (is 
that SysLinux?) or somewhere else, or whether the mismatch in number of 
lines inevitably causes problems.

I hope this isn't to vague :-)

Thanks,
Richard