On Wed, 26 Aug 1998, Harald Koerfgen wrote:
> The other one is using the PROM routines (works on all DECstations). This is
> what promcon.c in arch/mips/dec is for and is intended as a temporary
> solution until we have charakter device drivers to use as console devices for
> all DECstations.
Why temporary solution ? My experience shows prom console is good
enough to have it permanently. It's bug free, the code is small, higher
console code allows to emulate linux-like terminal on top of prom console.
I would recommend to look at SPARC/Linux code beginning from 2.1.109
(according to vger cvs tree, I don't know what is Linus' version that
corresponds to). Around this version console stuff was rewritten and became
more clear. Now, SPARC/Linux allows to have several consoles: prom,
sbus and ATI Mach (available only on UltraSparc). There are also
run-time options to select, something like console=prom.
Regards,
Gleb.
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