console and network booting weirdness?

Hi All,

I've recently set up remote booting both via PXE and also Etherboot &
Grub so I can boot my workstation remotely into FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT and
FreeBSD 4.9.

PXE - works great, however, I'd like to get a boot menu system going,
which is why I'm toying with Grub.

The most notable problem is with FreeBSD 5.2-CURRENT - If I boot into
FreeBSD using Etherboot or Grub (and as such, bypass the loader), the
console output disappears.

Once the system has booted, a login prompt pops up as per usual - just
nothing beforehand after Grub or Etherboot loads the kernel.

Is there a setting somewhere in the kernel config (at compile time) or is
the kernel defaulting to a serial console because some environment variables
or similar arent being passed to it by the loader as per usual?

Or is this a bug rather than a feature?..  in 4.X kernels, the console
continues to function after Grub or Etherboot loads the kernel.

Cheers,
Paul.