[Soekris] What is the meaning of BIOS parameter ConMute?

[Bent]

Hi

The first version of this post apparently never made it to the list,
so here it is again. Since I wrote version 1 (2 days ago) I have had
rather frustrating experiences with my 5501: It simply will not boot
reliably without a serial console attached. As I write below I'm
convinced this a flow control problem. Apparently GRUB stage 1.5 hangs
waiting for something, for as soon as I attach the console, the boot
process continues as if nothing has happened.

My Linux is Gentoo and I wonder if the problem might be distribution
specific. I would like to hear from others that either have the same
problem and that do not have it (that includes all of you Linux folks
out there ;-)).

The rest of this post is the original post - I don't want to change it
in case it did make it to the list and it just didn't make it to my
inbox.

Bent

Original post:
------------------

The ConMute BIOS is apparently new to the 5501. I have been unable to
find a user's manual for the 5501 so I (try to) use the manual for the
4801 instead.

After having used the hints from the "5501 Mystery - to me - at boot
time" thread I was able to get the 5501 to boot without a serial
terminal connected, but it would not reboot reliably. 1 out of 3 times
the box hang - both with warm and cold reboot. It is obviously a
flow control issue - what else could it be?.

I believe I have exhausted the configuration options for GRUB by using
these lines in GRUB's menu.lst:

# Hide the menu
hiddenmenu
# Setup a serial console
serial --unit=0 --speed=19200 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal serial

so I have started looking for similar options in the BIOS. There
aren't many and most of the are either obviously irrelevant for serial
i/o or/and described in the 4801 manual.

ConMute isn't described. It apparently has influence on the process
for since I changed it from Enabled to Disabled, it has booted
reliably.  (That statement is no longer true, conf. above. B)

So what is the meaning of ConMute?

Bent