Re: [MiNT] boot logging

[Ralph Lowinski <rl@aquaplan.de>]

Henk Robbers wrote:
[...]
> > Control-s pauses textoutput.
> > Control-q continues it. Like anywhere else.
> >
> 
> But it goes too fast!
> It was wrong in TOS, now it is wrong in MiNT.
> If a line travels the whole screen upwards without interruption
> until it disappears, it is an error, which should be fixed.
> Generate a Control-S from inside.

There is one general complication: The part of MiNT which reads the
mint.cnf
isn't some process which can be stopped by some simple mechanism, but
the
kernal itself and stopping this would probably freeze the complete
system.
The only way would be to check the keyboard after every output but this
would increase the boot time a lot. Additional it doesn't make any sense
to "blind fire" a lot of control-s to a parallel startet program like
fsck
and hope it will work right.

>-----

Jo Even Skarstein wrote:
[...]
> > My idea is to modify the "CON=" comand so that MiNT writes its messages
[...]
> Why not add a new keyword, "BOOTLOG=" or something? This will keep logging
> separate from the console.

That's ok, but what happens with the output going through 'CON' (eg. by
fsck)? Should it be duplicated (difficult) or left how it is (easy)? And
for the second way: is it really usefull to controll two files while
searching for an error message? And if no 'CON=' is given, what should
happend to the output of such exec'ed programs?

I suggest the following:
Since the last beta, MiNT knows the option command "set [-v] [-q] [-s]".
There could be implemented a switch '-i' (interactive) which means to
wait
for a keystroke after every kernel output So yo can go step by step
through
the boot sequence if you think something is wrong.
The 'CON' command alone redirects only these outputs which where
influenced
in previos MiNT versions also. Combined with a second new switch for
'set'
(eg.'-r', redirect) the kernal output goes to the 'CON' redirection too.
This switch without a previous 'CON' causes a new file (eg.'boot.log')
which
will be closed after booting atomatically.
And as third part a well done 'mint-cnf.doc'.

Would this usefull for users and for beginners also?

Ralph