On 13/04/21 12:31 pm, Ben Hutchings wrote:
On Mon, 2021-04-12 at 13:48 +1200, Richard Hector wrote:
On 11/04/21 9:26 pm, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Richard Hector, le dim. 11 avril 2021 21:18:49 +1200, a ecrit:
> > On 11/04/21 9:10 pm, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> > > $ git grep -i "Boot console" .
> > > en/boot-installer/parameters.xml: <title>Boot console</title>
> > > po/[...]
> > >
> > > That's very most probably it.
> >
> > I think so, yes. But my problems started earlier than booting linux, at the
> > SysLinux menu.
>
> See the section, it talks about kernel arguments, which are passed from
> the syslinux menu. See the section just before, "Boot Parameters".
Yes.
It's becoming clear that I asked/commented/complained about too many
things in one email :-)
I got the hang of the boot parameters, though that section doesn't
mention removing the 'vga=xxx' section from the linux command line. I'm
not sure if that's important; I'll have to retest to confirm.
But all that's irrelevant if I can't get to the linux commandline,
because Syslinux is misbehaving.
Does anyone know if it's inherent in Syslinux that it won't work
correctly with a 24-line serial terminal?
[...]
I think that syslinux is working through a BIOS-emulated display and
keyboard controller, and is not aware that a serial terminal is beign
used. The code for SeaBIOS's serial console support is here:
<https://github.com/pcengines/seabios/blob/apu_support/src/sercon.c>.
It presents an 80x25 (or 40x25) text display as there is no VGA BIOS
mode number for 80x24.
Ah - so while syslinux can talk to a serial console, it's not using that
in this case? Interesting, thanks. That could explain why I haven't seen
this on previous serial console installations (an old Soekris box).
That might make it more difficult to solve in software, leaving more
documentation as the only answer.
Cheers,
Richard
