On Wed, Jun 06, 2001 at 10:59:11AM -0700, Robert Rusek wrote:
> I am trying to install RedHat 5.1 Linux on my Challenge. I finally got the kernel to boot from the prom via bootp/tftp. The loading of the kernel stops with the following messag:
>
> Warning: unable to open an initial console.
>
> The HOW-TO states the following:
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This problem has two possible solutions. First make sure you actually have a driver for the console of your system configured. If this is the case and the problem persists you probably got victim of a widespead bug in Linux distributions and root filesystems out there. The console of a Linux systems should be a character device of major id 5, minor 1 with permissions of 622 and owned by user and group root. If that's not the case, cd to the root of the filesystem and execute the following commands as root:
>
> rm -f dev/console
> mknod --mode=622 dev/console
>
>
> You can also do this on a NFS root filesystem, even on the NFS server itself. However note that the major and minor ids are changed by NFS, therefore you must do this from a Linux system even if it's only a NFS client or the major / minor ID might be wrong when your Linux client boots from it.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> I have followed the above instructions and still I get:
>
> Warning: unable to open an initial console.
>
> I would assume then that I need a special driver for for the serial port (zs0). Just to clarify I am connecting a terminal to the serial port of the Challenge.
The standard SGI serial driver (CONFIG_SGI_SERIAL) supports the serial ports
of the Challenge S also. Only if this one is configured you'll get all
the output upto ``Warning: unable to open ...'' printed onto the serial
console. You also should see a message about two serial interfaces
being detected.
PS: Pressing the return character once every ~ 75 characters produces
properly formatted mails ...
