# 10.1-RELEASE on Raspberry Pi - no video console?



## nsayer (Nov 15, 2014)

I've got 10.1-RELEASE running on a Raspberry Pi B+, and things are coming along reasonably. But one issue is confounding me a bit. The serial port is being used as the console. I've got 
	
	



```
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
```
in config.txt, and with an HDMI monitor hooked up I can plainly see the kernel probing happening via HDMI. But the init script stuff doesn't show up (because it's going out the serial port), and `dmesg` reports 
	
	



```
uart0: console (115200,n,8,1)
```

I've tried adding 
	
	



```
console="vidconsole"
```
 to /boot/loader.conf, but that didn't seem to help.


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## a59303 (Nov 17, 2014)

Hi,

Have you looked here? http://elinux.org/RPi_Hub. A portal with a wealth of information.

a5'


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## nsayer (Nov 18, 2014)

I don't know for certain, but I'm fairly confident this isn't a problem with the Raspberry Pi firmware itself. The video console works, and forcing the HDMI hotplug should result in the video always being selected. But something about the FreeBSD boot code that's layered on top seems to be preferring a serial console, for reasons unclear to me.


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## a59303 (Nov 18, 2014)

Have you tried (do you have) the video RCA in the back of the TV as well?  I just used dd to put the image from here: http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/arm/armv6/ISO-IMAGES/10.1/ onto the chip again because I keep messing it up. Just to be clear, it shows video immediately.  Although I don't follow what you are saying about the init messages.

Anyway if loader.conf  was set without 
	
	



```
console="comconsole"
```
 before you changed it I guess you can assume that it is not the culprit.


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## a59303 (Nov 18, 2014)

_I h_ave been looking around a lot for the solution to my problem, mentioned elsewhere.  Maybe this description of the boot process would help.

Have a good day,

a5'


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## Tomtor (Dec 31, 2015)

Adding:


```
kern.console="ttyv0"
```

to /etc/sysctl.conf does the trick for me in 11-CURRENT, but after the kernel is booted.

So interacting with U-Boot and the FreeBSD ubldr still uses the serial console.


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