rea...@newsguy.com said: > Why is the console interface left so primitive?. > Seems it would at least have a usable mouse so one could have some chance > of copy paste when there are what appear to be important messages written to > console.
Hi Harry, As someone else mentioned, most of this stuff will end up in the /var/adm/messages file. Except, of course, for the very interesting lowest-level boot problems. The reason why it's so primitive is that at this point (in Solaris, OpenSolaris, Linux, or Windows), you're still pretty much dependent on whatever features the BIOS provides you, which limits you just to the old-fashioned, low-tech text-only console. There's just not enough software running yet to give you a GUI. What you need to solve such "scrolling off the screen" problems is something even lower tech: a serial (RS232, COM-port) console. Not all desktop PC BIOS'es can redirect their BIOS text to a COM port, but Solaris & Linux can be told to do so for their system console input & output. And grub itself can be told to do this as well. Then you hook up your troublesome machine's serial (COM) port to a working machine's serial port, fire up a terminal emulator (Windows hyperterm will work; On Linux/Unix I would use "conserver", but "tip" will do in a pinch), and watch the console messages that way. Of course, getting the serial ports wired correctly is a bit of an art (you may need a "null modem" cable, for example); And there are some boot-time flags you enter via grub to tell whatever kernel you're booting to temporarily use a "tty" console. Telling Google something like "solaris boot serial console" turns up quite a few references. Regards, Marion _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
