Serial console on a ThinkPad?

[Simon L. Nielsen]

On 2004.07.15 22:22:21 -0400, Dan Langille wrote:
> To help diagnose these APAPI problems with the CDRW, I'm going to 
> setup a serial console on my IBM ThinkPad T41.  However, there is no 
> serial port.  Well, none that I can see.  There is no traditional DB9 
> plug.

As Randi Bush said, that is probably only accessible if you have a port
replicator/docking station.

> The specs for the laptop say "Serial Port Type  2 (USB 2.0)".  I 
> don't know how to hook that up to the serial port on another system.
> 
> I have heard of USB-serial adaptors.  Is this an option?

AFAIK not for kernel debugging, since that would require the entire USB
stack to work when debugging, compared to the relativly simple
traditional serial port driver.

> Ideas/suggestions.   Thanks.

One posibility is Firewire - I used that successfully for a console for
debugging a problem on my ThinkPad R40 some time ago.  That just
requires another computer with Firewire and a Firewire cable.

Robert Watson posted some Ethercons patches to freebsd-current (AFAIR)
to get a console over Ethernet.  That might be an option, but I'm not
sure since I haven't looked more closely at the patches.

-- 
Simon L. Nielsen
FreeBSD Documentation Team
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