serial console for dummies?

[Scott I. Remick]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 10:21:23 +0000, Robert Slade wrote:

> I can't help you directly, but have you looked at the error logs? they
> should give you a clue, especially Xorg.log

Last few times I remember looking, there was nothing logged. This lead me
to believe that the lockup happened too fast for the output to the logfile
to be saved to disk. Hence my desire for a capture on a separate terminal
(which presumably might make it).

> Another thought is to connect via a network connection and SSH into the
> machine that will give you a console.

Unfortunately the laptop I have for this use has no network connection,
and it would also require getting FreeBSD working on this ancient (486)
thing, which is probably about as much fun as giving yourself a root
canal. I have questions about the condition of the HDD anyways (I was
going to use a boot floppy, running DOS and a terminal app).