Bug 134167

Summary:	serial installs broken without the "nofb" option
Product:	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3	Reporter:	Joshua Jensen <joshua>
Component:	anaconda	Assignee:	Jeremy Katz <katzj>
Status:	CLOSED NEXTRELEASE	QA Contact:	Mike McLean <mikem>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	3.0	CC:	nobody+pnasrat
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2005-06-21 15:31:51 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Joshua Jensen 2004-09-29 21:33:47 UTC

Description of problem:

When kickstarting machine with "console=/dev/ttyS0,9660n1 and "text",
we get no output to the serial link unless we also specify the nofb option

Perhaps console=anything should automatically involk the nofb option?
If not, at least document this "feature", in the Installation Guide
referenced below:

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

RHEL3


Additional info:

Section 4.3.3. Additional Boot Options of the Installation Guide
even gives an example of a serial install:
linux text console=<device>

This doesn't work (you don't see anything down the serial link)
without the nofb option being added

Comment 1 Jeremy Katz 2004-09-29 21:36:20 UTC

You want console=ttyS0,9660n1, not /dev/ttyS0.

Comment 2 Joshua Jensen 2004-09-29 21:44:16 UTC

Yes yes... that is what I meant.  *That* doesn't work without nofb

Comment 3 Joshua Jensen 2004-09-29 21:44:56 UTC

I'll also note the ",9660n1," isn't documented anywhere in the 
Installation Guide

Comment 4 Joshua Jensen 2004-11-05 14:02:30 UTC

Please respond.... "serial" != "serial" unless you *also* add "nofb".
 This isn't documented anywhere.  Either the documentation needs to
change, or (a better fix IMO) the keyword "serial" needs to
automatically include the logic that is involked by nofb.

Comment 5 Jeremy Katz 2004-11-10 23:11:44 UTC

Fair enough... U4 should have it so that serial implies nofb.

Comment 6 Joshua Jensen 2004-11-11 14:48:44 UTC

Cool!  How about a fix for this in FC3+ and RHEL4 ?

Comment 7 Jeremy Katz 2004-11-11 19:05:10 UTC

I already played branch monkey yesterday and merged the change across
all of taroon-branch, rhel4-branch and HEAD.

Comment 8 Joshua Jensen 2005-01-24 18:42:13 UTC

Excellent!  If the changes have really made it into RHEL4 and
Fedora/head, perhaps we can close this.