Zeroshell displaying odd characters on serial terminal
June 29th, 2010 | by RoarinPenguin |I’ve been recently fashioned by Zeroshell project, a very well documented project run by an italian guy who made a splendid job.
I tried to set it up on a VIA based appliance with Intel 1 Ghz processor and 1 Gb RAM, using 1 Gb Compact Flash and the image provided in download section of Zeroshell web site.
Everything went smooth, except that when I booted the appliance the BIOS information was displayed correctly, but as soon as Zeroshell boot started I saw crappy characters on screen.
After some investigation and some good hints from a friend, I found where the problem was and, as usual, here’s a tech note to avoid again this investigation in the future.
The issue was that appliance BIOS was set to redirect console to serial port with settings normally in use: 9600 bps, 8N1
…while Zeroshell defaults in its boot to more performing (but also less “default”) 38400.
To solve, remember to set your serial com port with correct speed as shown below (screenshot from a Win 7 box):
Or change the setting of the Terminal emulation software you are using to match the settings, as shown below (example with Putty):
Once you’re done, Zeroshell screen will appear as shown below:
