From owner-freebsd-ppc@FreeBSD.ORG  Thu May 19 21:54:15 2005
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-ppc@FreeBSD.ORG>
Delivered-To: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E623D16A4CE
	for <freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org>; Thu, 19 May 2005 21:54:15 +0000 (GMT)
Received: from liberty.onthenet.com.au (liberty.OntheNet.com.au
	[203.22.124.10])
	by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0419D43D6E
	for <freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org>; Thu, 19 May 2005 21:54:14 +0000 (GMT)
	(envelope-from grehan@freebsd.org)
Received: from [203.144.31.213] (CPE-31-213.dsl.onthenet.net [203.144.31.213])
	j4JLs0nP070900;	Fri, 20 May 2005 07:54:10 +1000 (EST)
	(envelope-from grehan@freebsd.org)
Message-ID: <428D0AE8.8040308@freebsd.org>
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 07:53:44 +1000
From: Peter Grehan <grehan@freebsd.org>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20041016
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Michael Dexter <dexter@ambidexter.com>
References: <a06210235beb28238b0b8@[192.168.1.101]>
In-Reply-To: <a06210235beb28238b0b8@[192.168.1.101]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
cc: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: USB Serial Console?
X-BeenThere: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1
Precedence: list
List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the PowerPC <freebsd-ppc.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-ppc>,
	<mailto:freebsd-ppc-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ppc>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-ppc-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-ppc>,
	<mailto:freebsd-ppc-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 21:54:16 -0000

Hi Michael,

> This is more of a FreeBSD general question but is applies to Mac PPC 
> more than the average platform:
> 
> Are there any FreeBSD USB Serial Console projects out there akin to that 
> in Linux?

  I don't know of one, but there's no reason why it couldn't be the 
console after it is probed - the USB keyboard already works in polled 
mode for console input.

  The issue is getting console i/o *before* the USB serial port is 
probed i.e. at the loader prompt and booting into the debugger, OFW 
doesn't support this though if you are a uber-hacker it may be possible 
to write Forth code to do this.

  In a similar vein, Firewire *can* be used as a console after it's 
probed, but there is the same issue with it not being supported by OFW.

later,

Peter.