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From: Julian Elischer <julian@ref.tfs.com>
Message-Id: <199504232354.QAA28367@ref.tfs.com>
Subject: Re: syscons probe function
To: jhay@mikom.csir.co.za (John Hay)
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 1995 16:54:00 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org
In-Reply-To: <199504232133.XAA01284@zibbi.mikom.csir.co.za> from "John Hay" at Apr 23, 95 11:33:12 pm
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> 
> I have mailed about this 2 weeks ago but received no response, so I'm trying
> again:)
sorry to hear this... sometime everyone assumes that someone else is going
to answer.. basically if you haven't heard in 2 days, assume this
has happenned. (we are planning on fixing this when we work out HOW)
 :)
> 
> The changes to syscons.c in the last month or so panic my machines that do
> not have a screen but have syscons in the kernel (they only have a serial
> terminal). It happens somewhere in the attach routine during a bcopy.
> 
> This led me to look through the the syscons.c file. One thing that bothers me
> is that the probe can never fail. It assumes that there is a screen. In the
> attach routine it will check if it is a colour screen otherwise it reverts
> to monochrome.
> 
> Shouldn't the probe determine if there is a screen and fail if there isn't?
> With the other changes in the kernel and the boot blocks one would assume
> that you can have a kernel with syscons compiled in and the syscons probe
> will just fail and go on with your console on the serial port, which does
> happen by the way, I do see the panic message on the serial terminal.

I wonder HOW we could see it there is a display?
do a memory test on it's ram?

maybe the serial console code should disable syscons?

julian