[syslinux] BTW, serial 0

Bjørn Mork bjorn at mork.no
Wed Aug 11 11:13:03 PDT 2010


Geert Stappers <stappers at stappers.nl> writes:
> Op 20100811 om 18:54 schreef Bjørn Mork:
>> Gene Cumm <gene.cumm at gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>> >
>> > Since you absolutely require the serial console options, your best bet
>> > is probably to remaster the discs and alter the configuration files
>> > that are used to include these options.
>> 
>> BTW, is there ever a reason *not* to put "serial 0" into a syslinux
>> configuration?
>
> The answer is another question:
>
>  What should do Syslinux
>  when there is no serial port (at the default address) ?

I would hope for nothing extra-ordinary.  I.e. the same as it would do
without the serial statement.  And I believe it does.

I do in fact boot my laptop with "serial 0" (trying to standardize my
extlinux.conf files on different systems), and this laptop does not have
any serial ports.  Not even a hidden one.  This is /proc/ioports:

0000-001f : dma1
0020-0021 : pic1
0040-0043 : timer0
0050-0053 : timer1
0060-0060 : keyboard
0064-0064 : keyboard
0070-0071 : rtc0
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00a1 : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : fpu
03c0-03df : vga+
0800-080f : pnp 00:02
0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1
1000-107f : pnp 00:02
  1000-1003 : ACPI PM1a_EVT_BLK
  1004-1005 : ACPI PM1a_CNT_BLK
  1008-100b : ACPI PM_TMR
  1010-1015 : ACPI CPU throttle
  1020-102f : ACPI GPE0_BLK
  1050-1050 : ACPI PM2_CNT_BLK
1180-11ff : pnp 00:02
15e0-15ef : pnp 00:02
1600-167f : pnp 00:02
1680-169f : pnp 00:02
1800-1807 : 0000:00:02.0
1838-183b : 0000:00:1f.2
  1838-183b : ahci
183c-183f : 0000:00:1f.2
  183c-183f : ahci
1840-185f : 0000:00:19.0
1860-187f : 0000:00:1a.0
  1860-187f : uhci_hcd
1880-189f : 0000:00:1a.1
  1880-189f : uhci_hcd
18a0-18bf : 0000:00:1a.2
  18a0-18bf : uhci_hcd
18c0-18df : 0000:00:1d.0
  18c0-18df : uhci_hcd
18e0-18ff : 0000:00:1d.1
  18e0-18ff : uhci_hcd
1c00-1c1f : 0000:00:1d.2
  1c00-1c1f : uhci_hcd
1c20-1c3f : 0000:00:1f.2
  1c20-1c3f : ahci
1c40-1c47 : 0000:00:1f.2
  1c40-1c47 : ahci
1c48-1c4f : 0000:00:1f.2
  1c48-1c4f : ahci
1c60-1c7f : 0000:00:1f.3
  1c60-1c7f : i801_smbus
2000-2fff : PCI Bus 0000:02
3000-3fff : PCI Bus 0000:03


AFAICS, adding "serial 0" gives the benefit of working on serial console
systems without changing anything noticable for other systems.  But I
was asking because I'm afraid I'm missing something.

Like the reason why Debian is so reluctant to include "serial 0" in
their default iso/pxe installation images.  I guess there must be a
reason...



Bjørn




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