Re: Persistent green messages interrupting console on NetBSD 6.99.19 i386

["Ian D. Leroux" <idleroux%fastmail.fm@localhost>]

On Tue, May 7, 2013, at 7:07, Thomas Mueller wrote:
> I keep getting green messages on the console, on a black background
> and white or light gray regular text, making it impossible to do
> anything useful.

By default, kernel output (error messages, typically) are in green,
whereas userland output is uncoloured.

> It is practically impossible to use vi editor because of all that
> green garbage, like

On i386, you can switch to another virtual terminal (once you have
enabled it, see below) with Ctrl-Alt-F<n>.  The kernel output only gets
sent to the console, which is usually accessed at Ctrl-Alt-F1.  Other
virtual terminals won't see it (or any other console output).

In fact, I generally disable the first virtual terminal on my machines
so that Ctrl-Alt-F1 is *only* for console output, and all user
interaction takes place on other vtys, precisely to avoid mixing error
and log messages into my user interface.

> May  6 23:18:38  /netbsd: sd0(umass0:0:0:0):  Check Condition on CDB:
> 0x35 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
> May  6 23:18:38  /netbsd:    SENSE KEY:  Vendor Unique
> May  6 23:18:38  /netbsd:     ASC/ASCQ:  Logical Unit Not Ready, Cause
> Not Reportable
> May  6 23:18:38  /netbsd: 

Looks like a problem with a USB drive.  What hardware is sd0?

> I might add, only one VT works; I can't go to another, even though I have
> wscons=YES in /etc/rc.conf .

You need to enable ttyE1 (or any others you want to use) by changing the
status from "off" to "on" in /etc/ttys.

-- IDL