Serial port as console ? Advice

[halfm...@gmail.com]

Hi Guys

I have really loved Minix in the past but I have abandoned it multiple times. I haven't been able to setup a user interface that would work for my purposes.

I am back again! hopefully to stay. I have another idea of how to present Minix to customers.

In Linux, a serial port can be used for tty and a remote user can login via a serial port.

Do you think I could do this with Minix too ? I know that SSH is an option too but this could be an issue for my application.

A user on Windows could open Putty or something else and interact with Minix running on another PC or a beagle board. I could take advantage of the sensible kernel design and userland device drivers.

Thanks-Patrick

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

In Linux, a serial port can be used for tty and a remote user can login via a serial port.

Do you think I could do this with Minix too ?

You can. The details depends on what you are trying to achieve exactly. I'll suppose you're going for a i386 installation on real hardware.

The easiest way is to just redirect the console to the first serial port by adding "console=tty00" to the kernel command line (getting this to work on your specific setup may require more fiddling). A quick and dirty way to test it is to add it with the bootloader prompt.

A more permanent solution requires editing /boot.cfg. If you are cross-compiling, that file is created inside releasetools/x86_hdimage.sh. You may also want to install a bootloader that uses the serial port, but that's not required.

Another way is to follow http://wiki.minix3.org/doku.php?id=usersguide:serialconsoles.

[halfm...@gmail.com]

Merci Jean-Baptiste

The guide was super simple. I am just setting up Minix under Qemu now. I am sure this will work.

Have a great day-Patrick