18:41:55 <wonko> If I do decide to try this PCIe passthrough thing is there a known to work usb serial dongle that reliably works as a console port?
19:28:26 <toasterson> wonko: why would you need a phisical serial port then you not even forward the USB?
19:29:38 <wonko> I need a console for the NUC itself if I'm going to pass the GPU through
19:31:31 <toasterson> ah, I see.
19:32:04 <toasterson> THere are a couple in the OpenIndiana HCL, those will work for smartos as well https://docs.openindiana.org/community-hcl/components/#serial-controllers
20:58:49 <jclulow> wonko: I'm not sure the USB console stuff works at all to be honest 
21:17:49 <wonko> jclulow: it would surprise me greatly if it did to be honest.
21:18:58 <jclulow> I mean it's theoretically possible for it to work for some purposes 
21:19:05 <jclulow> I just don't think it does right now haha
21:19:23 <jclulow> You would not be able to interact with the bootloader for example, or at least early kmdb 
21:19:34 <toasterson> Console ttya?
21:19:45 <jclulow> But with fixes it would likely work for the actual system ttymon
21:21:12 <jclulow> With temporary boot environment activation available now though I suspect the cases where you'd need to interact with the boot loader to fix boot are fewer
21:22:20 <toasterson> isn't serial console ttya?
21:22:37 <toasterson> shouldn't it work the same as bhyve
21:22:46 <toasterson> or libvirt?
23:23:16 <jclulow> ttya is, on x86 systems, specifically the PC-compatible COM1
23:23:33 <jclulow> It's a specific kind of UART chip that is attached to specific I/O ports on the CPU (effectively)
23:23:45 <jclulow> a USB serial console is vastly different, and requires a lot more machinery (e.g., a USB stack) to wokr
23:23:47 <jclulow> *work
23:23:50 <jclulow> They're definitely not equivalent
23:39:26 <rennj> spi uart usb pick something....sparc had nice ttyA ttyB
23:42:16 <rennj> handshaking, device detection, auto speed negotiation yeah usb going to be more complicated