(Bug #152385 may be related to this problem.) when you boot the default RHEL4 kernel on Dell PowerEdge 2650 (and others) with serial console enabled, the 8250 driver will foul up the settings during its initialisation so that the serial driver will print nothing but garbage. Kernel command line: ks=nfs:host:/path/ks.cfg initrd=initrd.img ramdisk_size=8192 BOOT_IMAGE=vmlinuz console=ttyS0,9600 console=tty0 this works fine until: serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12 serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1 Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 8 ports, IRQ sharing enabled ^@%^@U^@P^@^@^@Z%$^@;^@^@t^@A?`^@~^@^@^@^@^@1^@C^@^L^@^@^@^\xZf0^D^@^_^@^@-^@ the problem has been discussed on linux-kernel, but I don't think it has been resolved, the code remains in 2.6.11. http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0503.3/1091.html
Assuming the port is detected as a NS16550A, this is a duplicate of bug #156705. Bug #152385 is something entirely different. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 156705 ***
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on the solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2005-514.html