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SubjectRe: /dev/console should it always be available?
Unfortunately I dont have a serial port on the hardware either...
It was very poorly designed... (IMO) I will try linking /dev/console
to dev null or the patch I was sent to do "console=null". Hopefully
this will work.

Oh and BTW... I did not have this problem with a 2.0.x kernel. Was
any of the conesole code changed? Currently I have the problem with
2.3.40+ I have not tested anything else. (No 2.2.x kernels)

Thanks,
Mike


On Sat, Feb 26, 2000 at 02:25:03PM -0500, Ricky Beam wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Feb 2000, Mike Panetta wrote:
> >Should /dev/console always be available even if there is no
> >video card or keyboard on a machine? I keep getting these
>
> As a rule, yes. However, intel based systems tend to have serious problem
> without a video card in there. Sparcs and most alphas (at least the server
> hardware) uses the serial port as the console in the absence of a video
> console.
>
> I look at this as a serious flaw in the x86 hardware design, but seeing
> as x86 hardware is generally designed for "desktop" applications, I don't
> hold it against anyone. (BTW, have you ever tried running NT on a machine
> without a video device? It's not pretty unless you have a specialized
> version.)
>
> >messages in the logs about init not being able to open(/dev/console)
> >when I remove the video card from an embedded box I am working on.
>
> You can compile in serial console support and use "console=ttyS0"
> to set the console to the serial port. There were patches as far
> back as 1.2 for serial consoles on x86 hardware.
>
> >when I do this strange things start to happen like it cannot properly
> >umount /dev/hda5 (not root partition) on shutdown, and mingetty starts
> >to respawn to fast. This is related to a previous message I sent to the
> >list about a week ago reguarding the ext2 corruption messages without
> >a video card in the machine. Since then I have upgraded all the libraries
> >to be compilant with the rquirements in Documentation/Changes and the
> >corruption has gone away. Now I am stuck with unclean mounts and other
> >random occurences...
>
> Bad programs making bad assumptions... from a purist standpoint, one
> should check the return values from printf() and things [no one ever
> does, tho'. I've seen some programs peg the CPU because of it.]
>
> >What am I to do?
>
> Make sure /dev/console points to a useable device at all times. One could
> write a quicky program to check /dev/tty1, /dev/ttyS0, /dev/null, etc. and
> replace /dev/console with a symlink. (Of course, one could argue the kernel
> console driver should've done that at boot :-))
>
> I quote devices.txt:
>
> 5 char Alternate TTY devices
> 0 = /dev/tty Current TTY device
> 1 = /dev/console System console
> ...
>
> That says to me the kernel should always have a valid /dev/console (even if
> it has to send it to /dev/null.)
>
> --Ricky
>
> PS: programs not having a stdin, stdout, and stderr is a nasty problem.
>

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