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From: Jonathan McKeown <jonathan@hst.org.za>
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Cc: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>,
	Jonathan McKeown <jonathan+freebsd-hackers@hst.org.za>
Subject: Re: Enhancing cdboot [patch for review]
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On Thursday 11 December 2008 10:45:41 Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:37:26 +0200, Jonathan McKeown 
<jonathan+freebsd-hackers@hst.org.za> wrote:
> > While you're enhancing cdboot anyway, can I ask how complicated it
> > would be to make cdboot serial-console capable? (I'm not a C
> > programmer, I'm a sysadmin - but I'd be prepared to try and look at
> > this myself if no-one else is interested).
> >
> > As it stands, the only way I've found to do a serial-console CD-based
> > installation is by enabling the serial console in /boot/loader.conf,
> > by which time you've already missed several useful points,
> > particularly the entry to BIOS settings (if you have a serial-capable
> > BIOS).
>
> cdboot runs long after the prompt for BIOS setup.  I don't think we can
> modify cdboot to add serial console support to systems whose BIOS setup
> doesn't support it.

Sorry, of course you're right: I'm talking nonsense.

It's the stage immediately after that that isn't available. I wish I could 
remember why I thought that had caused me a problem once.

Certainly there's a big chunk of the boot process that is accessible through a 
serial console on a disk-based boot that's not available on a serial-console 
boot.