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Re: Forcing a serial console for the kernel



smj%cirr.com@localhost said:
> The issue I have is that if I use 'consdev com0' at the boot prompt,
> should I not be able to redirect console output to the serial port on
> a PC for   any kernel regardless of whether as long as their is driver
> support for   'com'?

Generally yes, but two cases come to mind where this doesn't work:
-If the kernel configuration defines CONS_OVERRIDE, the bootblock's
 information is ignored. (shouldn't be the case for an INSTALL kernel)
-If the BIOS does some weird console redirection, it might manipulate
 the IO address table in the BIOS data area, to hide the serial port
 from users. In this case, only a bootblock which has the console's
 "ioaddr" explicitely set (eg by installboot(8)) can take over
 the serial port. (I've recently seen such a case.)

best regards
Matthias



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