Linux serial terminals other than minicom?

[RedShark]

Hey everyone,

Does anyone here administer machines via a serial cable? I am now, and first let me say it's really slick. With the right config, you can choose which kernel you want to boot, and see everything as the machine initializes everything, all via a serial cable. With a separate remote reboot feature, I can now install a new kernel and not worry about being left with an unbootable machine. If the network fails I can still login in via serial. Only if the disk crashes or I reformat would it not be possible to recover.

Anyway, my question is: I'm using minicom over a serial cable. The terminal emulation offered is rather lame, and I have some trouble with it. For example, emacs constantly screws up the width and height. Can anyone recommend any other serial terminal software?

Thanks!

 

[`danny]

That does sound very slick I have never even considered it before. Thanks for the sweet idea !

 

[supergper]

vi has always worked great for me over minicom and yes, I use minicom quite often, none of my Sun boxes can be managed any other way (well, besides SSH once they are loaded/working)

 

[RedShark]

Yeah yeah I should have know the vi comment was coming Pretend I use vi. Here's a different rationale: there's no color in minicom. I like color in my terminals.

 

[hoffstetter]

Here's a DIY version on Hack-a-day that looks pretty cool.

 

[Xipher]

screen can act as a serial terminal client. I have used it a few times. I wouldn't say it's great but it does work, although the documentation doesn't cover using it in that fashion.