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### Installing Debian 11.0 on an APU4 board ### |
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So I acquired this little APU4 board from the good folks at PC Engines. It |
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is a little board with 4 gigabit interfaces. The intention is to use it as |
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my home router. |
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I've downloaded the Debian 11.0 netinst ISO and have written it onto a USB |
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pendrive. Since there is no graphic chip on this board, I've connected my |
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PC over a RS-232 serial link and launched minicom (settings: 115200, 8N1). |
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The APU4 board happily booted from the USB pendrive and presented the |
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Debian installation screen. Hurray. But the joy didn't last long, because |
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as soon as I tried to move forward, the system presented me with such |
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unwelcoming message: |
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"Undefined video mode number, Press <ENTER> to see video modes available, |
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<SPACE> to continue, or wait 30 sec" |
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After some fiddling around I found out that the solution is to edit the |
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kernel arguments in the first install screen (by pressing TAB) and editing |
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the default arguments: |
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> /install.amd/vmlinuz vga=788 initrd=/install.amd/initrd.gz --- quiet |
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to this: |
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> /install.amd/vmlinuz vga=off initrd=/install.amd/initrd.gz --- quiet |
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console=ttyS0,115200n8 |
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From there, the installation went smoothly, just like on a VGA console. |
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Once the instllation was over, the system was presenting a login screen on |
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the serial port without me having to worry about anything console-related. |
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