HD Install :: Frugal on CF for a Soekris NET4801

Any runlevel can be run as a cheatcode, 1 is also a synonym with "single"

I tried to boot DSL from CD on a regular laptop with

Code Sample

dsl acpi=off 3 console=ttyS0,19200n8

Another laptop with an hyperTerminal was connected on the other side of the serial link.
It did not see anything coming out of the serial link but the same funny characters I usually got from my embedded pc. I now can say it is issued by the "autoconfiguring devices" step.
So why does the kernel not take into account the "console" instruction?
Once booted, I tried a

Code Sample

getty -L -n -l /bin/bash 19200 ttyS0 vt102

and got a root shell in my Hyperterminal.
The very same command after respawn in /etc/inittab from KNOPPIX does not do anything visible.
Perhaps is there a problem during the boot process but as long as the boot messages are not redirected to the serial interface I won't be able to know what happens.

The inittab in KNOPPIX is not used, you might want to change inittab in minirt24.gz..

I eventually got a shell on my serial port thanks to bootlocal.sh inspite of getting nothing during the whole boot. I'll try curaga's proposal on Monday. By now I will describe my way to go around in case it can help someone.
First of all I would say the kernel was compiled without the possibility of getting the console on the serial port for I read that it was not a default option.

I booted DSL CD on a regular laptop in which I had inserted my CF (with a PCMCIA adaptor). My CF was /dev/hde whereas the HDD of the laptop was /dev/hda (tricky...)
After making a boot partition of 60Mb in /dev/hde1, another of 68Mb in /dev/hde2 (followed by a mke2fs), I made a grub Frugal install on hde1 with "3 ssh noeject acpi=off home=hde2 restore=hde2 opt=hde2"
After that I mounted /dev/hde1 and I suppressed /mnt/hde1/boot/grub/device.map
I mounted /dev/hde2, created /mnt/hde2/opt and copied /opt/bootlocal.sh into it.
I added

Code Sample

/sbin/getty -L -l /bin/bash -n 19200 ttyS0 vt102

in bootlocal.sh
Then I rebooted my regular laptop on its regular OS (which is Knoppix 5.1). In that configuration the laptop HDD was /dev/sda and my CF was /dev/hda
I guess this is the lucky part of the story for I am not sure of the way to fool grub with the devices

Code Sample

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1
cd /mnt/hda1
grub-install --root-directory=. /dev/hda

I suppressed sda from boot/grub/device.map,
rerun grub-install,
replaced hde by hda in boot/grub/menu.list
After inserting the CF in my embedded pc, in spite of a blind boot, bash prompt appeared on the hyperTerminal. I could then give a password to dsl and get network access to the pc through ssh

original here.