[systemd-devel] getty at .service.m4 and serial-getty at .service.m4

[Andrew Edmunds]

Hi,

A few points about these two source files.

1. getty at .service.m4 has:
> m4_ifdef(`TARGET_FEDORA', `m4_define(`GETTY', `/sbin/agetty 38400')')m4_dnl
> m4_ifdef(`TARGET_SUSE', `m4_define(`GETTY', `/sbin/agetty 38400')')m4_dnl
> m4_ifdef(`TARGET_DEBIAN', `m4_define(`GETTY', `/sbin/getty 38400')')m4_dnl
> m4_ifdef(`TARGET_UBUNTU', `m4_define(`GETTY', `/sbin/getty 38400')')m4_dnl
> m4_ifdef(`TARGET_GENTOO', `m4_define(`GETTY', `/sbin/agetty 38400')')m4_dnl
> m4_ifdef(`TARGET_ARCH', `m4_define(`GETTY', `/sbin/agetty -8 38400')')m4_dnl

This code should be duplicated into serial-getty at .service.m4, or
pulled out into configure.ac so that it can be used by both units.
Currently serial-getty at .service tries to invoke /sbin/agetty on
Debian/Ubuntu, which doesn't exist.

2. serial-getty at .service.m4 invokes agetty with option "-s", which
seems to have been recently added to agetty at Lennart's request.
getty on Debian/Ubuntu doesn't have that option yet and I would
guess that other distros may be in the same position. Since ifdefs
are needed here anyway, it would be nice to apply that option only
to the distros where it currently works.

3. Both files have:
> m4_ifdef(`TARGET_FEDORA',
> After=rc-local.service
> )m4_dnl
> m4_ifdef(`TARGET_ARCH',
> After=rc-local.service
> )m4_dnl

Is there a reason why this applies only to Fedora and Arch?  It seems
appropriate for all users as far as I can see.

I can send a patch for the above, but I'll let others comment first.

Incidentally, HP-UX used to have (possibly still has) a nice feature
where getty would normally be started at the end of the boot sequence
but you could press the Break key to start it immediately, if an
init script was hanging for example.  As a wishlist item, perhaps
getty could be started via some little helper program that provides
similar functionality.

-- 
Andrew Edmunds
andrew.edmunds at yahoo.com.au