Comment by wmf
11 hours ago
It's path dependence. If you built a Sun-syle x86 server with a serial console and inserted a random Linux installer CD, the installer would probably only output VGA and thus it wouldn't work.
11 hours ago
It's path dependence. If you built a Sun-syle x86 server with a serial console and inserted a random Linux installer CD, the installer would probably only output VGA and thus it wouldn't work.
That's part that was changed with UEFI when the old IBM PC "contract" was finally severed.
I would wager that almost no Linux installs are done by CD or displaying VGA anymore (maybe 0.01%).
> I would wager that almost no Linux installs are done by CD or displaying VGA anymore (maybe 0.01%).
When one of your Proxmox (or XCP-ng, or VMware/Nutanix/OpenStack) servers won't boot and you need go into single-user/rescue mode, then talk to me about the convenience or not of a remote KVM (versus having to drive to the DC and hook up the crash cart).
It's all very well if all you manage is VMs/instances, but some of us deal with the hardware that those VMs run on, and things break.
That 0.01% of servers is probably the layer that the other 99.99% run on (and yes, a lot of that 0.01% can also be automated, but if PXE isn't working (or you're getting strange CPU3VOLT or SLOT17ECC or BUS1RESET errors) then neither is re-imaging).
The alternative isn't driving to the DC; it's remote serial console through a console server or the BMC.
Path dependence again. x86 servers in the 1990s had to have VGA so it was never removed. (Except Oxide.)
Debian installer runs fine over serial, at least.