init from sysvinit-2.86-r1 has problems with serial console. On some systems (proliant DL145), there are several lines skipped in console log. After first init call, messages reappear after coldplug. After entering run-level 3, everything is skipped until agetty is spawned. The solution was to use a static flag for sysvinit compilation, which fixes the problem. However, the INIT line and first log line are on the same output line. There was no such problem with Tyan motherboards. DL145 has IPMI access enabled on the serial port. Here is emerge --info output ---------- Portage 2.0.51.22-r2 (default-linux/amd64/2005.0, gcc-3.4.4, glibc-2.3.5-r1, 2.6.12-gentoo-r9 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.12-gentoo-r9 x86_64 AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 244 Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13 distcc 2.18.3 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled] dev-lang/python: 2.4.1-r1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.12 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r7 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6 sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.18-r1 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" DISTDIR="/net/brenta/d0/nfs/gentoo/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://ftp.gentoo.skynet.be/pub/gentoo http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j8" PKGDIR="/net/brenta/d0/nfs/gentoo/packages/amd64.cluster" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/net/brenta/d0/nfs/gentoo/portage.local" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="amd64 X Xaw3d a52 aac aalib accessibility accounting acl alsa apache2 athena atlas avi bash-completion berkdb bidi bitmap-fonts blas bonobo cdparanoia crypt cups dbm dga dts dvd dvdr edl eds emacs emacs-w3 encode esd fam fame fastcgi fbcon festival ffmpeg font-server foomaticdb fortran gcj gd gdbm gif gimpprint gmp gnome gnuplot gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 imagemagick imap imlib innodb ipv6 irda ithreads jack java joystick jpeg kde kerberos krb4 ldap libcaca libclamav libwww lirc live lzo lzw lzw-tiff matroska mbox mime motif mozsvg mp3 mpeg mule mysql mysqli nagios-dns nagios-ntp nagios-ping nas ncurses network nls nptl nvidia objc odbc opengl pam pam_console pcmcia pcre pda pdflib perl perlsuid png posix postgres postgresql povray python qt quicktime quotas readline rtc samba sasl sdl session smime snmp sox spell ssl svg tcltk tcpd tetex tga theora threads tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts unicode usb v4l v4l2 vhosts webdav xanim xfs xine xinerama xml2 xmms xpm xscreensaver xv xvid xvmc zlib userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS
Well, it seems the solution did not work. Several reboots show that this behaviour is quite random. Messages are sometimes there, sometimes missing. Any idea what could cause this problem?
my guess is crappy serial connection what buad are you running it at ? try dropping it to lower values
I am using 19200. I will try with 9600. Anyway, there are no problems with login and using the console after boot. suse 9.3 also apears to work without problems.
HP DL145 serial interface seems too buggy to be used. Anyway, using IPMI serial redirection to ethernet managment port works OK.