Re: Serial Console

Hey, Olaf.

> I have a question concerning the OpenBrick (especially
> the OpenBrick NG): Does the bios support a serial console?

   Okay; this isn't something that's BIOS related: it's Linux kernel 
related.  To do what you want you need to enable "support for console on 
serial port" which will then allow you to eventually hook up something like 
a dumb terminal to your OpenBrick serial port.

Linux 2.4 kernel:
   http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/kernelcompile-24.html
Linux 2.5 kernel (assume it also works for 2.6):
   http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/kernelcompile-25.html

> I do not intend to use a VGA-capable display but just
> a serial console so I would need this feature to configure
> the bios and to see the boot messages...

   For this particular purpose you'll probably have to figure out a way to 
redirect the output from stdout to the serial device, and trying to do that 
at boot time is probably going to be tricky...  Might have to hack the 
kernel source and compile it to truly get what you want with that.
   If all that you want is after the kernel has started, then output 
redirecting might be enough; you could set up the 1st terminal session to 
be the serial port.

   I've never done what you're describing and I've never connected a dumb 
terminal to a serial port of a Linux box yet, but I have heard of users who 
are doing this, and know of one Linux user who is doing it.  [Tim Sailer, 
LILUG]

	- Chris

-- 
Chris Knadle
[email protected]