*BSD News Article 74997


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
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From: bdb@GTS.Net (Bruce Becker)
Subject: Re: Booting with serial console
Message-ID: <DvBvx0.87J@GTS.Net>
Organization: G.T.S., Toronto, Ontario
References: <9607260941.aa11195@office.demon.net> <4tb62a$iav@news.hcl.com> <Dv8wwH.9x8@gts.net> <4ticuk$4qo@innocence.interface-business.de>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 23:29:23 GMT
Lines: 37

In article <4ticuk$4qo@innocence.interface-business.de>,
J Wunsch <joerg_wunsch@interface-business.de> wrote:
|bdb@GTS.Net (Bruce Becker) wrote:
|
|> |>I need to be able to boot Netbsd i386 from a serial console, ie no monitor
|> |>connected. 
|> |
|> |        Is this even possible with an Intel machine?
|
|> 	FreeBSD has been able to do this for some time -
|> 	it would be quite useful for NetBSD to be able to
|> 	do this as well...
|
|It has even been available in 386BSD 0.1, if my memory serves me well,
|and has been calle "options COMCONSOLE" all the time (which is almost
|obsolete now in FreeBSD).  The only thing we've been adding in FreeBSD
|was the serial bootblocks, allowing you to even see the bootprompt on
|the first serial line.
|
|(Alas, the automagic selection between serial and graphics console
|from within the bootblocks depending on the existance of a keyboard
|doesn't work right yet.)


	I'm not surprised to hear that - some BIOS implementations are
	fairly finicky about the keyboard, sometimes hilariously so:


		No keyboard found
		Press <F1> to continue...


-- 
  ,u,	 Bruce Becker		Toronto, Ontario	1 416 699 1868
a /i/	 Internet: bdb@gts.org	Uucp: ...!gts!bdb
 `\o\-e	 "The Gates Motel - users check in but they never check out"
 _< /_								- Windfall 95