[Soekris] dumb serial/monitor port question

[Gregory Neil Shapiro]

farber> Am am currently netbooting via PXE with a kernel set up to use the
farber> serial port as a console.

farber> Will the monitor in bios know to turn off and become a serial port?

It does for me..

farber> Currently when I boot via PXE nothing comes shows on the serial
farber> port (laptop) after init starts up (and starts a getty on the
farber> serial port for login).

I can't quite parse that -- Does nothing show up until after getty starts
(e.g., no boot messages) or does nothing show up after getty starts (e.g.,
no login prompt).

Also, what OS?  I'm using FreeBSD 4.6-STABLE.  In case you are the same,
things to try include:

1. Make sure you turn on the console line in /etc/ttys:

console	"/usr/libexec/getty std.19200"	vt100	on  secure

(std.19200 may need to change to std.9600 depending on your Soekris BIOS
setting)

2. Set your console speed in your kernel:

options		CONSPEED=19200		# Console speed

3. Make sure you serial port is set as a console device in your kernel:

device		sio0	at isa? port IO_COM1 flags 0x30 irq 4

The flags setting is described in the sio man page.