### Installing Debian 11.0 on an APU4 board ###
So I acquired this little APU4 board from the good folks at PC Engines. It
is a little board with 4 gigabit interfaces. The intention is to use it as
my home router.
I've downloaded the Debian 11.0 netinst ISO and have written it onto a USB
pendrive. Since there is no graphic chip on this board, I've connected my
PC over a RS-232 serial link and launched minicom (settings: 115200, 8N1).
The APU4 board happily booted from the USB pendrive and presented the
Debian installation screen. Hurray. But the joy didn't last long, because
as soon as I tried to move forward, the system presented me with such
unwelcoming message:
"Undefined video mode number, Press <ENTER> to see video modes available,
<SPACE> to continue, or wait 30 sec"
After some fiddling around I found out that the solution is to edit the
kernel arguments in the first install screen (by pressing TAB) and editing
the default arguments:
> /install.amd/vmlinuz vga=788 initrd=/install.amd/initrd.gz --- quiet
to this:
> /install.amd/vmlinuz vga=off initrd=/install.amd/initrd.gz --- quiet
console=ttyS0,115200n8
From there, the installation went smoothly, just like on a VGA console.
Once the instllation was over, the system was presenting a login screen on
the serial port without me having to worry about anything console-related.