Logging in via Lish super glitch

When I enter my linode to start console the terminal rapidly glitches cursor flies around everywhere and says Console Starting… at the bottom which is hard to make out because it is machine gunning so fast. This is the second attempt after restarting the linode. Any speculations?

When you log in, there are properties the shell needs to know about the terminal in order to function properly. These are usually set up with the stty command. Apparently the shell has made correct assumptions but your "console start" command (I'm assuming this is some sort of gaming console) has not. Consequently, the "console start" command is issuing escape sequences to the console device that it doesn't understand or are being wrongly interpreted. That is what's causing the cursor to fly around, etc.

Try logging in with ssh and starting your gaming console from a "regular" terminal (the console device, /dev/console is special in Unix/Linux…it's generally considered to be not for public use like regular /dev/tty* devices are).

FWIW, it's a bad idea to run interactive things at the console. The system generates tons o' log messages that appear there. You can't turn these off without changing the value of some system tunable parameter. This causes the display to get seriously messed up while your interactive program is in progress. Anyone who's tried to edit a file with vi at the console knows what I mean.

There's a way to start your gaming console from an ssh session…and then re-attach to the running console program in a later ssh session. I'd be willing to bet you a six-pack of fine Oregon IPA on that. Check the docs…

Also, all of this pre-supposes that you've set up ssh on your Linode so you can log in securely. If you haven't done that, you should.

-- sw