[Gllug] No video card - no boot?

[tet at accucard.com]

>I believe Tyan Tiger motherboards can be set to have serial consoles
>and not need a video card to boot. 

We have Compaq DL320 and DL360 1U servers that work fine without a
video card. There's a BIOS option that lets them boot without video
card or keyboard. We have to manually setup serial console using
grub/lilo though.

>You need to set that up first time in the BIOS using a cheap video
>card...

Yep, you have to do that with ours too. Also, unlike serial consoles on
"real" computers (read: SPARC, Alpha, PPC, pretty much anything except
x86 really), you can't get BIOS/PROM level access over the serial port.
Do the Tyan's let you do that? If so, I forsee some of my money winging
their way. There are various options for doing that now, but they're
not pleasant. Compaq sell a remote management card which does it, but
it a) adds an extra 500 quid to the cost of the server, and b) takes
up the only available PCI slow in a 1U chassis. Equally, the Real Weasel
has the same disadvantages. At that point, the price advantage of an
x86 solution over, say, a Netra T1, doesn't look so hot. Plus I can
remotely power cycle the Netra over the serial console, something that
none of the x86 solutions I've seen offer. When your machines are at a
hosting centre 10 miles away (as ours are), that's an invaluable feature...

Tet


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