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.

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".

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.

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

Note: the "Do as I say, not as I do" recommendation is to test this
on a floppy first, but since your floppy doesn't work, there's no
point in that. I just had to say it, though. ;-)

> 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.


Frederick