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Date: Tue,  3 Dec 2002 22:10:57 -0400 (AST)
From: Pierre-Paul Lavoie <ppl@nbnet.nb.ca>
Reply-To: Pierre-Paul Lavoie <ppl@nbnet.nb.ca>
To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org
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Subject: docs/45981: Printer setup documentation: Running dmesg weeks after boot up
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>Number:         45981
>Category:       docs
>Synopsis:       Printer setup documentation: Running dmesg weeks after boot up
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-doc
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          doc-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Dec 03 18:20:01 PST 2002
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Pierre-Paul Lavoie
>Release:        FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE-p1 i386
>Organization:
>Environment:
System: FreeBSD bloodaxis 4.7-RELEASE-p1 FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE-p1 #0: Fri Nov 8 20:48:41 AST 2002 root@bloodaxis:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/BLOODAXIS i386


>Description:

Taken from FreeBSD handbook printing section 11.3.1.2.1
(Kernel Configuration):

<snip>
To find out if the kernel you are currently using supports a serial
interface, type:

    # dmesg | grep sioN
</snip>

If it have been a while that the operating system is boot up,
original messages might have been silently discarded. As a result,
the user will not get any output from the above command.

Maybe `cat /var/run/dmesg.boot' should be use instead of dmesg(1)?
It is uglier, but have the advantage of beeing guaranteed to work
(I think). Or perhaps add a new -b(oot) option to dmesg(1) that
simply echo back `dmesg.boot'.

I believe that it would be a good thing to warn about this potential
pitfall.

>How-To-Repeat:

Go to
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/printing-intro-setup.html#PRINTING-SIMPLE
section 11.3.1.2.1 Kernel Configuration

>Fix:

Mention `cat /var/run/dmesg.boot` instead of dmesg if it
have been a while that you have boot up.
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:

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