On Sun, Apr 11, 2021 at 11:51:57AM +1200, Richard Hector wrote: > Hi all,
Hi Mailinglist, > I'm commenting here partly because I don't know which bit of software is at > fault for each problem ... > > I have a PCEngines APU4, which has a serial port and no video hardware. > > I'm using a USB-serial adapter, with a null-modem cable. > > I'm using a Buster netinst USB stick - 10.1 I think - according to the cdrom > lines in sources.list > > My first issue was that xfce4-terminal (by default) traps F10, which I > needed for the Coreboot/Seabios boot menu, but I've since discovered that's > an option in the preferences. I got around that initially by using xterm. > > My first try was with minicom. It connected ok, but it appeared the arrow > keys weren't working, and the line drawing characters weren't displaying > correctly either. > > When I discovered screen acts as a serial terminal, that behaved rather > better (colour, and nice line drawing characters), but still problems with > arrows. > > Then finally, I can't remember how, I discovered that it didn't like > displaying on a 24-line terminal, which most of the terminals I tried > default to. > > With a 25-line terminal, it all seems useable - and Minicom mostly displays > it ok too (not quite right; the blue box isn't quite drawn properly, and > seems too low on the screen? > > It then took me some time to realise that I needed to both add > console=ttyS0,115200n8 at the end of the kernel line, and apparently remove > the 'vga=xxx' part earlier in the line. I guess it's not possible for > SysLinux to detect that? > > Anyway, as I say I'm not sure whether the issues are in the terminal > emulation (either the xterm or comms program), or in the menu system (is > that SysLinux?) or somewhere else, or whether the mismatch in number of > lines inevitably causes problems. > > I hope this isn't to vague :-) It is a clear story of a struggle that has been won :-) On how to prevent that more people solve a solved problem was a websearch done https://duckduckgo.com/q=debian+installer+serial+line One of the first hits is https://www.debian.org/releases/buster/amd64/ch05s03.en.html which has a section called 'Boot console'. Rereading that section again made we wonder what could be improved. I'm asking Original Poster to elaborate what should be changed. Regards Geert Stappers DD -- Silence is hard to parse
