On Thu, Feb 28, 2002 at 06:09:16PM -0500, Christian Lavoie wrote:

> What exactly happens when I get the "SWITCHING TO SERIAL CONSOLE"
> message?

the computer starts talking to a serial port on the back of the machine.
if you plug in a null modem cable to a dumb terminal (or another
computer that is acting like one via tip, kermit, or minicom), you'll be
able to continue the installation.

> It hangs until a console is found?

it has found a console it can use (the serial port on the back of the
machine) and if you had a terminal hooked to it, you'd see sysinst there
waiting for you.

> Quite frankly, if I could use a network console instead of a physical
> one, that would help like nothing else could (I think =). Two machines
> (maybe more in the future), only one (working) set of
> keyboard-mouse-screen...

you can't log in on the network until the network is configured.  in
order to configure the network, you need to be at the console.

> Which is why I was hoping to bypass the installation steps and get SSH
> running as soon as possible.

except ssh needs the network to be set up, and you can't set up the
network over the network.

> From there, I'll manage. If I could disable the console, redirect it
> to a file or a socket or anything like that, that'd be great. As I've
> mentionned, I've got linux machines on the network that I could use
> for networking magic.

you need one of two things to install netbsd on your machine:

1) a serial console cable and a dumb terminal (or equivalent)

- OR -

2) a kernel to boot which supports a console on your graphics card.

what version of NetBSD are you trying to install?

> Is there any way to plug a "TCP/IP terminal" to a NetBSD machine?

again... you cannot configure the network over the network if it's down.

-- 
  Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agrier@poofygoof.com
      "[...] I generally haven't found IDM guys to be very good
       live acts, most of them just sit down at their laptop and
       tweak reaktor."  -- Brandon Daniel