> Date: Mon, 18 Mar 96 13:05:28 -0500 (EST)
> From: woods@most.weird.com (Greg A. Woods)

[ "Why oh why doen't init spit out a simple little error message
   the first time this fails?" ] 

> Hmmm...  I had for some reason assumed that the kernel could/would keep
> init's STDIO file descriptors opened on the same device it was reading
> and writing to, making it trivial for init to write out error messages....
> 
> Is this not how the UNIX SysV kernels start up init?

Interesting.  I was not aware of that.  Sounds kinda neat!

> Doesn't the kernel already properly hook /dev/console onto whatever is
> specified by the EEPROM?

Yes.

> Which reminds me....  What the heck is this /dev/kd stuff the sun3 port
> is using now?  Why no just use /dev/console for what it is?  It seems to
> mess up headless machines to no end (assuming I've done other things
> properly), not to mention that the kernel debugger seems incapable of
> hooking on to the EEPROM defined console no matter what.

The /dev/kd device exists as a real device so that the /dev/console
"redirector" has a real device to "point at."  The /etc/ttys file,
as distributed, runs getty on /dev/kd and /dev/ttya only.  The only
use for /dev/console should be output messages, except for init which
opens it read/write in single-user mode.  This avoids the possibility
of two gettys on the same tty line (i.e. /dev/console and /dev/ttya).

> Now to stretch this thread to its breaking limit -- does anyone know if
> the new savecore changes will make kernel dumps work on the sun3?

Yes, once someone has a chance to implement the sun3 specific parts.

Gordon