not too sure if it's a linux related issue but here's the post anyway.

I was planning on getting a kvm but wondering if there's any other alternative? I heard that new PC based boxes can talk over serial ports & that I can tell Linux to talk over serial ports on boot.

I am not too sure how that thing works. Can anyone confirm or deny? Can anyone explain the whole thing a little bit?

TIA.

Possiable but is used mostly for console use. It is very very slow to do that way if wanting gui use. KVM is really the way to go. You can use programs like rdesktop and vnc but there is a slight lag in updates. If you don't plan on needing instant display then vnc should do well. If needing instant display like to do gaming on another machine then KVM is the only way to go.

Hope this helps
Brian1

I have used a VNC server (tight-vnc) as opposed to a KVM and I have been happy with the performance. THe delay is almost negligible if you are not playing full motion video or gaming. For normal office apps and web browsing even it is very quick,robust, and reliable on a LAN. Even playing a small movie clip works fine, just not full motion video.

A serial console is not really neccessary unless you are running a keyboard/mouseless networked server that you either need to go to user level 1 with and/or you want that to be your only point of administration (I think, but I'm going off of memory here).