Hi I probably missed previous messages regarding this subject but I wondered why it was necessary to install via the serial port. Is it because your synth isn't supported by speakup? Congrats! Gena > I was going to ask for help on this list, but I figured >out what was wrong, myself, so I will tell all of you what happened. > > I use an old P.C. running MS-DOS and a screen reader as >well as Kermit's terminal emulater as a serial terminal. > > What I was noticing was that if I started the >installation from the CDROM with the command > >linux console=ttyS0,9600n8 > >everything worked right until I finished the part on the CDROM >where one installs the base operating system and reboots. > > After rebooting, one discovers two important things. > > The good news is that Debian configured the TTY port to >be a serial console all the time so the system talks after reboot. > > The bad news is that it forgets that it should be a vt100 >terminal and starts spitting out all kinds of escape codes along >with the configuration dialog. > > To make a long story short, you can fix that by putting >the CDROM back in as if you were going to start from the >beginning once more. Instead of doing that, go to the option >that lets you start a shell. > > Mount your brand new base operating system partition on >/mnt and then go to what should be /etc/inittab. In this case, >it is /mnt/etc/inittab. > > Since the special shell you are in is designed to fit on >a floppy disk, there isn't room for vi and you must run something >called nano-tiny which is kind of like getting cut off at the >knees. > > To be honest, I never figured it out well enough to edit >inittab, but I did mount /dev/fd0 to another mount point and copy >inittab to the floppy and then edit it on a working Linux system >with vi. > > I then reversed the process and moved the floppy back to >the new system and cp'd inittab back to /mnt/etc/inittab. > > What you do is to find the line that mentions your serial >port and comment it out. Look a little further down and there is >another line that mentions your serial port in the way it >normally is set up. That line is also commented out so you need >to uncomment it. > > Now, the system will know on the next boot that you are >a vt100 again. > > Reboot and you will get a shell prompt. Don't let that >scare you. just run /usr/bin/base-configure and you will be back >where you left off before except that now the screen works right. > > My hat goes off to the original developers of Linux for >some real forethought in making it possible to get a back door in >to the configuration process in order to fix the terminal problem >for situations like this. Nobody ever said that it had to be >pretty or neat, but at least we can modify the situation to make >it work for us. > > The other thing I learned is that the inittab file used >for the configuration part of the installation process is not >your regular inittab file. It gets used just long enough to >effect the installation and then it is replaced with the proper >inittab file. > > >Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK >OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Network Operations Group > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Blinux-list@redhat.com >https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list