Re: Serial console

[Christoph Plattner]

Oh, blame to me. I never thought, that `terminal' can take more
than one argument. So the design is clean ! Thanks !

With friendly regards
Christoph P.



"Yoshinori K. Okuji" wrote:
> 
> At Thu, 11 Apr 2002 23:53:08 +0200,
> Christoph Plattner wrote:
> > Let's try with the new status of knowledge:
> >
> > * GRUB only support 2 kinds of console: one is serial, the other is
> >   VGA/KBD.
> 
> That's not correct. Hercules is also supported. I think a kind of
> "network console" will be added, but this is just a plan which may or
> may not realize.
> 
> > * While the timeout is running, all (= 2) consoles are "polled" if
> >   a user reaction is detected, if one is detected, then this device
> >   is select as console device. Correct ?
> > * If the timeout runs out, then the console type is used, which is given
> >   as parameter in the `terminal' call.
> 
> A bit different. GRUB polls only terminals specified to "terminal" by
> the user. For example, if you enter "terminal serial", console is not
> polled. With "terminal hercules console", GRUB polls hercules and
> console but not serial.
> 
> When the timeout expires, GRUB selects the first argument to
> "terminal" as the default terminal. For example, if you specify
> "terminal --timeout=10 console serial", console will be selected,
> unless you input anything. Likewise, if you specify "terminal
> --timeout=10 serial console", serial will be selected.
> 
> > A system canbe configured to a "serial console" or to a "...." (and this
> > is the difficult part !), for example "screen/keyboard" is often used
> > on UNIX machines, "VGA/keyboard" is also suitable for PC architecture.
> 
> I agree that the terminology is not very good, and it is really
> difficult to choose a good wording.
> 
> But I think the current one is not so bad. To quote from The Jargon
> File:
> > console
> > n.
> > 1. The operator's station of a {mainframe(->link)}. In times past, this
> > was a privileged location that conveyed godlike powers to anyone with
> > fingers on its keys. Under Unix and other modern timesharing OSes, such
> > privileges are guarded by passwords instead, and the console is just the
> > {tty(->link)} the system was booted from. Some of the mystique remains,
> > however, and it is traditional for sysadmins to post urgent messages to
> > all users from the console (on Unix, /dev/console).
> > 2. On microcomputer Unix boxes, the main screen and keyboard (as opposed
> > to character-only terminals talking to a serial port). Typically only
> > the console can do real graphics or run {X(->link)}.
> 
> The second description matches my use of the word "console".
> 
> Perhaps the bad thing is just that the manual doesn't explain how the
> terms will be used before they are really used.
> 
> Okuji

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