grub serial console advice on pci, pci-e, usb serial adapters

[Jelle de Jong]

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Hello everybody,

I bought a few HP Z600 systems to make a test cluster and I normally
use GRUB2 but this system does not have a serial console by default
and require expensive (+20 euro PA716A, 283984-001, 264534-001 serial
port adapters) that are about the same price as a new PCI, PCIE or USB
serial adapter.

However when I boot the system GRUB is not showing up, probably
because it is not loading the driver. I prefer not to use a USB device.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rootfstype=ext4 console=ttyS0,115200 rootdelay=20"

GRUB_TERMINAL=serial
GRUB_SERIAL_COMMAND="serial --speed=115200 --unit=0 --word=8
- --parity=no --stop=1"

For systemd this is enough. else with inittab:

# change the single-user mode line
~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin /dev/console

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty -f /etc/issue.linuxlogo.ascii 38400 tty1

# add the following line
T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -f /etc/issue.linuxlogo.ascii -L ttyS0
115200 vt100

So my question is, can I use an PCI or PCI-E serial adapter (specific
drivers?) to make sure the GRUB serial output is shown.

Kind regards,

Jelle de Jong
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