[olug] headless PC operation

[Matthew G. Marsh]

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003, Sean Edwards wrote:

> It is pretty cool and not that hard.  One way is to
> edit /etc/inittab to not spawn any tty* (local
> terminals accessible via CTRL+F*), and only spawn
> terminal sessions to active serial ports.  Here is an
> example of an inittab entry from the "TEXT TERMINAL
> HOWTO":

You have completely missed the point. By "headless" I refer to running the
physical hardware of the machine irrelevant of OS. Please go read the
realweasal page. The use you refer to is the OS usage after the machine
has started. But you cannot get the BIOS that way. What Neal & I were
referring to is the ability to have the _entire_ box run headless
including the BIOS. IE: Using your setup how do you see the BIOS screen
over the serial console? Your setup will only work once the BIOS, POST,
etal are over and the OS has full boot-strap load completed.

In example - the BIOS in the intel-clone rack mount I referred to allows
me to type in LILO prompt variables over a dialup modem connection. Your
setup cannot. See?

> S1:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L 19200 ttyS1 vt102

Also - check out the "Serial Console mode" for the kernel which does not
even care about or use init. You usually have to compile it into the
kernel manually. The command above assumes that you are using init. You
don't have to have init to boot...

> To save on memory and increase performance when
> running Linux as a desktop (X, GNOME, BlackBox, etc.),
> I usually edit the inittab to spawn only 2 or 3 local
> terminals.
>
> -=Sean Edwards=-
> cybersean3000 at yahoo.com
>
>
> --- "Matthew G. Marsh" <mgm at midwestlinux.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, 26 Aug 2003, neal rauhauser wrote:
> >
> > > http://www.realweasel.com/
> >
> > Cool. Now that is a groovin' gadget. I run buttloads
> > o'servers headless
> > but they are spanko about the BIOS (except the intel
> > and ibm rack mount
> > systems). Heh - curious if anyone with those name
> > brand racks (Dell etc)
> > knows if they can do true headless in the BIOS. I
> > know my intel
> > clone'o'rack bios does. And the ibm racks seem to
> > (at least the few I have
> > played with).
> >
> > >   This site is mentioned in the Absolute OpenBSD
> > book - if you've got
> > > $250, you can make a machine headless/serial. I
> > can think of a few
> > > immediate uses for this one ...
> > >
> > > --
> > > mailto:neal at lists.rauhauser.net
> > > phone:402-301-9555
> > > "After all that I've been through, you're the only
> > one who matters,
> > > you never left me in the dark here on my own" -
> > Widespread Panic
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------
> > Matthew G. Marsh,  President
> > Paktronix Systems LLC
> > 1506 North 59th Street
> > Omaha  NE  68104
> > Phone: (402) 553-2288
> > Email: mgm at midwestlinux.com
> > WWW:  http://www.midwestlinux.com
> > --------------------------------------------------
> > _______________________________________________
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> > OLUG at olug.org
> > http://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>
>
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--------------------------------------------------
Matthew G. Marsh,  President
Paktronix Systems LLC
1506 North 59th Street
Omaha  NE  68104
Phone: (402) 553-2288
Email: mgm at midwestlinux.com
WWW:  http://www.midwestlinux.com
--------------------------------------------------