Hi Greg,

There is a quite informative howto from Adafruit for using a console
cable on
https://learn.adafruit.com/downloads/pdf/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-5-using-a-console-cable.pdf

which is agnostic to which distribution you use. But the other end is
usb not a 9 pins serial cable if you need that you can add a serial port
to the Pi with this instruction
http://www.savagehomeautomation.com/projects/raspberry-pi-installing-a-rs232-serial-port.html.

Hope this helps!

On 27-11-15 08:31, dng-request@??? wrote:
> I was planning to get a serial cable for the pi, so I can do
> console=ttyS0,115200 to be able to interact with it from boot to shutdown,
> but saw no mention anywhere of being able to do this, so I probably
> won't get the cable. Being blind, I have no use for a screen, and see
> little point to having a keyboard with no output. So whatever
> distribution I would use needs to be light, text-console-based, and
> provide a ready to login ssh server once I put the sd card into the
> pi, and plug it in. Any comments or suggestions would be
> appreciated. I will also be needing another wired usb network
> card. So, if anyone can suggest one which you know is supported by linux, that
> would be great too if the list moderators will allow it. Unfortunately
> the product listings don't list the chipset a given card uses. I'll be
> shopping at newegg.com. Thanks in advance.
>
> Greg
>