Re: No console

[Robert Swindells <rjs%fdy2.co.uk@localhost>]

Jim Bernard wrote:
>On Thu, Apr 06, 2017 at 09:54:47AM +0100, Robert Swindells wrote:
>> 
>> ... or I can comment it out of the kernel config.
>> 
>> That isn't an answer to the question that I am asking.
>> 
>> At some point when I am doing cycles of taking out other unused device
>> entries from the config and trying out the resulting kernel the console
>> will stop displaying text. I can't see a pattern to what causes the
>> change.
>> 
>> I just wanted to know if anyone else was seeing similar behaviour.
>
>Yes, I've been having the same problem, also with -current amd64 kernels.
>It occurs on both a Dell Optiplex 960 with an Intel E8400 cpu and an Nvidia
>GeForce 9300 GE card that nouveau doesn't handle (so I use no drm in the
>kernel) and on a Lenovo T61 laptop with an Intel T9300 cpu and i965GM
>graphics that drmkms doesn't handle (so I use legacy drm in the kernel).
>On both machines, there is text from the boot code, but none from the kernel
>or any userland programs that run during multiuser startup, including getty.
>There is a cursor, and it moves occasionally, but no text is printed.  If I
>type blindly, I can log in (still no text printed) and start X, which does
>correctly generate its usual display.
>
>FWIW, there is text printed by drmkms kernels on both machines, but both
>machines fail to finish booting with drmkms.  (That failure, of course, is
>a different issue.)
>
>The most-recent no-drm kernel I have that works on the Optiplex was built
>from -current updated 201702110025Z (7.99.59), and the oldest no-drm kernel
>I have that prints no text was built from -current updated 201702130335Z
>(7.99.59).  So there's about a 2-day window during which that particular
>problem must have been introduced.
>
>I do get successful boots with normal console text printout on a Lenovo
>Yoga 460 laptop with -current GENERIC amd64 kernels, but X doesn't work
>at all on that machine.

Thanks, both for confirming that I wasn't going crazy and for providing
the time window during which it broke.

The cause looks to be this:

<http://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2017/02/11/msg081926.html>

Backing out the change restores the console for me.

It explains why progressively taking things out of a kernel config would
break at a seemingly random point.

Robert Swindells