Re: serial console, have linefeed but no command prompt

[Pete Popov <ppopov@mvista.com>]

Wayne Gowcher wrote:
> 
> I am trying to bring up a mips based board using the
> serial console outputing to a serial terminal.
> Everything seems to boot OK, I see the various printk
> messages of the kernel booting right up until the
> execve calls in init/main.c init().
> After this point the board stops printing to the
> serial console, but if I hit return at the terminals
> keyboard, the terminal's cursor moves down one line.
> But I still have no command prompt.
> 
> Up until now I have been successfully booting the
> board with the 2.2.13 kernel using nfs as the file
> system. The problem kernel is my attempt at porting
> 2.4.0 test 9 to the same board, using the same nfs.
> 
> I suspect I have a setup problem with the serial
> configuration in the kernel ( not the filesystem since
> 2.2.13 is OK ), maybe it's not selecting the right
> terminal or not directing output correctly ? But I am
> not sure how to fix it and would appreciate any help,
> references to texts that would help me.

I would suggest you first start by loading ash.static or some other
statically compiled shell (boot with "init=/bin/bash or
init=/bin/ash.static, depending on what shell you have) and then go from
there.  If even that doesn't work, try cross compiling a static hello
world and load that as the init (something like "init=/bin/hello").  

What does you /etc/inittab look like?

Pete