> On 2014-11-01, ropers <rop...@gmail.com> wrote: >> * Has anyone here used a USB-only laptop with a USB-to-serial adapter >> as a serial console? (You know, instead of hardware that has a native >> RS-232 port?
On 1 November 2014 23:51, Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote: > This is impossible. The serial part is on the wrong end. The > console code would have to drive a USB device with all the USB bus > complexity. I'm having one heck of a hard time understanding why it's impossible, or maybe we're talking at cross-purposes. Maybe I've expressed myself imprecisely or incorrectly. Are we even talking about the same thing? When I said I wanted to use a USB-only laptop *as* a serial console, what I meant was this: 1. There is a headless computer that has a physical RS-232. This is not the laptop. 2. There is a laptop that has USB but lacks a built-in RS-232. 3. I want to buy a USB-to-serial adapter to plug into that laptop. Then I want to use a null-modem cable to connect that serial-port-on-a-dongle to the headless computer's physical serial port. 4. I do not expect to capture the laptop's bootup kernel messages. I do not expect to run the laptop in single user mode. The laptop would be fully booted up and running a (fancy or barebones tty) terminal emulator program. I would however hope to be able to capture the headless computer's output (from the point where it's redirected to serial) and give it keyboard input from the laptop. Is that what we're both talking about? And if so, is that actually impossible? And if so, could you elaborate on why that is? I'm not sure I've understood your explanation correctly. Corollary question: Is Patrick's advice applicable or yours? regards, ropers
