Connecting to HP Procurve switch
 

I am trying to connect to the "console" connection on a HP Procurve switch via com1. I am using redhat 9 and understand I would do this through the agetty command in Terminal. I also gather that I need to make changes to my .inittab file. Also, I am not sure the os is even recognizing com1. So my questions are as follows; 1) how do I check to see if the system has recognized and initialized com1 2) Is agetty the appropriate way to connect via com1? and any advise, beyond the man page? 3) Do I need to modify .inittab? What modification would I need to make?
I sure this is very simple and I appreciate any advise offered. Thanks!

Use the program minicom. It's a communication program for serial communications.
Your com 1 would be /dev/ttyS0 in linux
com 2 would be /dev/ttyS1

agetty is for you to run on linux to let others log in to your linux box, not to connect to other devices.