Bug#960390: x86_64: No serial port output

[Colin Watson]

Control: reassign -1 debian-installer

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 05:32:51PM +0900, Punit Agrawal wrote:
> Package: grub2
> 
> Grub does not output to serial port when running in a VM launched using
> Qemu when run as part of the Debian Installer. This prevents
> installation of Debian in a VM when running without a GUI. In this
> specific instance, I was trying to install Debian in a VM over ssh.
> 
> To reproduce the problem, run
> 
>     $ qemu-system-x86_64 -cdrom debian-10.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso -nographic
> 
> The BIOS / Firmware outputs to the serial port but no further progress
> is seen on the serial console. Dropping the `-nographic` shows that
> Debian Installer is launched in a graphical window waiting for input.
> 
> Once installed without `-nographic`, the following changes to
> /etc/default/grub and running `sudo update-grub` enabled serial output.
> 
>     GRUB_TERMINAL=console
>     GRUB_SERIAL_COMMAND="serial --speed=11520 --unit=0 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
> 
> The behaviour was seen on both Buster and Bullseye based Debian
> Installer images on x86_64. It was also consistent for both legacy and
> UEFI firmware.

The installer supplies its own GRUB configuration for the installer
images themselves; and its "grub-installer" component then has code to
at least attempt to configure the installed system's GRUB to use serial
output if the installer itself was using serial output.  So I think
either way this is something that would need to be fixed in the
installer.  Reassigning there.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at debian.org]