On Tue, Apr 03, 2001 at 10:35:37AM -0500, Frederick Bruckman wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Apr 2001, Webmaster Jim wrote:
> 
> > Now, I moved the drive to the original cabinet.  The boot works, finds
> > the kernel, checks the filesystem and gets to a login prompt.  However,
> > when I try to type something I get no echo.  The keyboard seems OK
> > during boot as I can start the BIOS screen, move around, change values,
> > etc.  I don't remember seeing anything specific about AT style keyboard
> > problems, but I know that the console interface has changed quite a bit
> > since 1.3.
> 
> Have you tried a different keyboard? It's worth a shot.

Yes, I did.  Same result.
 
> Can you boot to single-user? Try catching the "boot>" prompt by
> hitting the spacebar, then type "boot wd0a:netbsd -s". Right after it
> boots, type "fsck -p", before "swapctl -A; mount -a". Then you can
> either set the terminal type with "eval `tset -s wsvt25`" or get your
> normal root environment (csh) with "su -l".

I don't quite understand the timing of the above ("after it boots ...
before" -- before what?).  I can type anything on the keyboard when I
hit spacebar during the startup, so the keyboard seems mechanically
sound.  I just tried the "boot... -s" and the keyboard freezes after
the message "Enter pathname RETURN for sh".


> Assuming that you can get to single user, for wscons, you should have
> /dev/ttyE{[0-7],cfg}, dev/ws{kbd,mouse}[0-3], and the getty, in
> /etc/ttys, running on /dev/ttyE0 (or /dev/console). I think, however,
> if that were the problem, you wouldn't get a "login:" at all.

Not there yet...
 
> You said you effectively upgraded by hand. Did you update the
> bootblocks? If you can boot to single user:
> 
>     cd /usr/mdec
>     ./installboot -v ./biosboot.sym /dev/rwd0a

This looks like what I ran.  During the upgrade, I found the disk would
not boot, so I ran this to get it to boot.  I probably toasted the
bootblock during my attempts to change the SYSID.

 
> > What are my options?  Can I build a kernel with a different console?
> > Could someone give pointers to help on setting up a serial console?  I
> > felt like I was so close to having 1.5 running!
> 
> You only need to change the bootblocks to switch to a different
> console. The generic kernel will go with whatever's passed in from the
> bootblocks. There should be some appropriately named alternatives in
> /usr/mdec. I suggest you enable only "console" in /etc/ttys first,
> since that uses the same magic as the kernel messages and debugger, so
> it'll work either way.  Once you can login on either the virtual
> console or the serial port, switch "console" off, and the actual port on.

I left the generic kernel on the disk as "netbsd-15", as well as the
generic kernel I compiled "netbsd.old" and the last kernel I built with
removing various SCSI and network drivers. All three lock the kbd.

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Marvin the Paranoid Android says:
The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million
years, they were the worst too. The third million years I didn't enjoy
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