[Devil-linux-develop] Serial Console - Success!!

[Peter F. <pe...@em...>]

Okay folks, I have tested and perfected the serial console booting.

Why not submit a patch?  I suck at making patches (lame, I know).  They
are always wrong.  Besides, the steps are very simple (3 lines).

1 - Modify scripts/build-iso
Find this line:

BOOT_OPTIONS_DL="root=/dev/ram0 initrd=/boot/initrd.gz init=/linuxrc
$BOOT_OPTION_RAMDISK"

and turn it into this line:

BOOT_OPTIONS_DL="root=/dev/ram0 initrd=/boot/initrd.gz init=/linuxrc
$BOOT_OPTION_RAMDISK console=tty0 console=tty0,9600n8 "

This change is enough to allow kernel boot messages to populate COM1.
It is also enough to create a boot prompt...but ONLY in single user mode
(init 1).  We need this in multi-user modes (3,5).

2 - Modify /etc/inittab
Append the following line to your inittab file:
S0:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L 9600 ttyS0 vt102

3 - Modify /etc/securetty (optional)
Append:
ttyS0
to your securetty file.
If you do not, you have to log in as a regular user and su root.

**** YOU ARE DONE - REBOOT and ENJOY ****

Notes:
1 - For those concerned with systems W/O a serial port.
I have a Laptop WITHOUT a serial port.  I booted the DL image on it and
did not receive any errors or weird messages.  More testing is welcome,
but I am confident that the kernel boot change (scripts/build-iso) is
harmless for 99.99999% of systems out there.

2 - Why agetty instead of mgetty?
Beats me!  I wasted hours trying to make mgetty work.  It DID work, but
with a glitch:  you could only log in once!  Any attempt to log in again
would render the serial port useless till the next reboot!  No matter
what I tried to do, mgetty just would NOT give me a login prompt again
till a reboot.  I looked at my SuSE box, and commented out in their
inittab was "agetty".  Hey, if SuSE can do it, so can we!

-- 
Have a great day

Peter Frischknecht
Empowering Solutions, Inc.
http://www.empoweringsolutions.com
AIM: esipeterf