Re: ttys1 displaying odd output

[Scott Gifford <sgifford@suspectclass.com>]

joseph lockhart <jwl_andlovesaidno@yahoo.com> writes:

> ok, checked my computer today and found strange output
> on ttys1 which i only use for boot messages, 
>
> [A[Dj[2~[G[Cp;vy[Co[D+ut [Dc +[Ci[Dx+ryi[D+
> ri[D+ri[D+rc[C6[D[1~i+ 6[D[1~9[2+i 6[1~[yejsw
>
> [password:

It's possible some other process opened the TTY and wrote garbage to
it.  You can use lsof to see if any running process still has the TTY
open:

    lsof /dev/ttyS1

IIRC, ttyS1 is a serial port.  If that's the case, this could also be
line noise on the serial cable.

Or, as Chris Howie mentioned, it could be somebody banging on the
keyboard.  In my house at least, that would be the most likely
explanation.  :-)

----Scott.