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Date:      Fri, 10 Mar 2000 17:06:28 -0800
From:      Mike Smith <msmith@freebsd.org>
To:        Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com>
Cc:        Kazutaka YOKOTA <yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp>, freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: 4.0-20000307-CURRENT kern.flp keyboard probe questions 
Message-ID:  <200003110106.RAA02153@mass.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 10 Mar 2000 18:58:16 CST." <Pine.BSF.4.21.0003101843100.8418-100000@ren.sasknow.com> 

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> > >Isn't there a better way to identify a serial console?  
> > 
> > I don't understand.  What do you expect the boot loader to do?
> 
> I'm not sure, that's why I asked the list :-)  Really, what I was asking
> is if there is a better way to detect a serial console.. Rather than the
> current logic of "If there is no keyboard, there must be a serial
> console".  I can think of N reasons why a box would have no keyboard
> attached, besides having a serial console.

Actually, there aren't very many.  If you don't have a keyboard, you need 
a console of some sort.  If you don't have a console, you've made enough 
modifications to be undaunted by removing two bytes from /boot.config.

> I know very little about serial consoles, but can they not be probed
> somehow to determine their existence?  If that's not possible, at least,
> what I'm suggesting below still sounds reasonable.

No, they can't be probed, and no, if you think about it for a minute, 
what you're proposing is entirely nonsensical.

Note also that the probe-for-keyboard feature is only used on the 
installation media; it's not the default for system behaviour (yet).

-- 
\\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\  Mike Smith
\\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself,  \\  msmith@freebsd.org
\\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime.             \\  msmith@cdrom.com




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