Subject: More on the serial strangeness

From: Mike Shaver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 04:58:17 -0400 (EDT)

Some better information about my situation, now that I'm not as
rushed:

- I have a serial console on port 1 of the Indy, and I'm talking to it
via minicom on my Linux box.  WOrks great.  Sometimes BRK gets me back
to the PROM, sometimes it just hangs, but I can live with that.
- The boot process goes pretty well, but when I get past the root
mount (using init=/bin/sh), I can't interact with anything.
- I see the `# ' prompt, I get stderr output (!) but the following
commands (which do execute) produce no output:
echo "ttyS0" > /dev/ttyS0
echo "ttyS1" > /dev/ttyS1
echo "cua1" > /dev/cua1
echo "cua0" > /dev/cua0
- If I try to access /dev/console or /dev/tty[1234], I get "can't
create /dev/whatever: Error 19", which seems to be "no such device".

If someone with the appropriate tools could build me a static tail
binary, it'll make the experimentation go a fair bit faster.

I'll be back in Ottawa tomorrow afternoon for a few days, so I'll be
able to work on the console, but since I'll be travelling a _lot_ over
the next few weeks, having the serial stuff work properly is still
important.

I'm still using the dm@neteng 2.0.12 kernel.  Ralf, do you have
anything else built over there you want me to test?

(If it'll help, I can set Miguel and Ralf up with appropriate access
on neon so they can experiment.  It'll take a few days, but if it
keeps those precious geek-cycle from going to waste...)

Mike

-- 
#> Mike Shaver ([email-masked]) Ingenia Communications Corporation 
#>      Chief System Architect -- will tame sendmail(8) for food       
#>                                                                     
#> "You are a very perverse individual, and I think I'd like to get to 
#>  know you better." --- [email-masked]

---

From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 15:11:52 +0200 (MET DST)

Hi,

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[...]
>Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 04:58:17 -0400 (EDT)

Two days for that mail?

> create /dev/whatever: Error 19", which seems to be "no such device".

Btw, Linux/MIPS errno values are (almost) the same as IRIX.

> binary, it'll make the experimentation go a fair bit faster.

This is the fun part.  You probably need to cheat to make textutils'
autoconf work for crosscompilation.  It's usually ok to run configure on
a Linux/Intel system (Using a glibc system is a good idea) and then
crosscompile with a command like

  make CC=mips-linux-gcc CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" LDFLAGS="-static -s"

Autoconf is *nice* in almost all cases but it's often a bitch when
crosscompiling, so feel free to use every dirty trick in the book ...

> keeps those precious geek-cycle from going to waste...)

Thanks, would be useful.

  Ralf