Re: Ways to report trace when boot panics [Was NetBSD 7.0 i386 panic during boot]

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Mon, 12 Oct 2015 07:15:43 +0200
    From:        Felix Deichmann <m4j0rd0m0%gmail.com@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <CALX=d=dw-EFR9WXOLy46-UTg-dMUnvGU=4NNZ9UrWCRwss1RzQ%mail.gmail.com@localhost>

  | Sounds complicated. Why not just use a ucom(4) device as console then?
  | Gives RS232 again with the right adapter. :)

No, that makes no sense.   The whole point is that no-one has RS232
on anything modern - forcing it to exist, just because it is what used
to be used helps nothing.

Sure, it would save some effort on the running system, there you can
just plug in one of those, and use any standard program to talk to
the other system.   But that's the easy side of all of this (I'd
expect).

The system that's to have it as its console would still need to have
low level (polled, no interrupts) USB access, but would also need to
implement everything needed to talk to such a device (in addition to
talking to the controller) ... and all for the "benefit" of getting a
slow unreliable ancient protocol designed to connect teletypes.

What's more, that also needs extra hardware, which is also something to
avoid (since it is likely to be used rarely, you'd never be able to
find it when you need it, wouldn't have it with you when travelling, ...)

Keep it simple.   That way it is likely to work, and be implementable.

kre