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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.eng.convex.com!cs.utexas.edu!howland.erols.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!not-for-mail From: eric@fudge.uchicago.edu (Eric Fischer) Subject: Re: serial console & NetBSD/sparc X-Nntp-Posting-Host: fudge.uchicago.edu Message-ID: <E858yy.226@midway.uchicago.edu> Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator) X-Newsposter: Pnews 4.0-test51 (15 Jan 97) Organization: The University of Chicago References: <5i46jt$931@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> Date: Sat, 5 Apr 1997 02:44:58 GMT Lines: 23 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:5758 Sean Sweda <sweda@ren.us.itd.umich.edu> wrote: > I've been a long-time NetBSD/mac68k user, and I recently installed > NetBSD/sparc on a Sparc 2. My question is simply this: How do I go > about setting it up for a serial console boot? I'm assuming that > I'll have to change an environement variable in the PROM monitor, > but do I have to pass any flags to the kernel at boot? Do I need to > edit /etc/ttys as well? With most Suns, all you have to do to make the serial console active is to unplug the keyboard before you turn the computer on. Editing /etc/ttys is probably a good idea, though, because otherwise it's still going to think you have a 30-line-high terminal of type "sun". There are a few problems: some parts of the boot process seem to believe the console terminal doesn't want parity and other parts that it does, so if your terminal doesn't strip parity off you're going to get some strange looking messages while the system is coming up. I also was having problems with dropped characters, but I don't know whether this was a problem with NetBSD or with the computer I had on the other end of the serial line. eric