Jan 19, 2021, 9:09 AM
Post #25 of 34
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On Sun, 2021-01-17 at 05:17 +-0000, Thomas Mueller wrote:
+AD4- On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 12:01:48 +-0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
+AD4-
+AD4- +AD4- Hello, Gentoo.
+AD4- +AD4- On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 16:06:38 +-0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 22:15:25 -0000, Grant Edwards wrote:
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- On 2021-01-13, Alan Mackenzie +ADw-acm+AEA-muc.de+AD4- wrote:
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- I think bringing up a new Gentoo system absolutely requires
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- working in
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- the console, certainly up to the point where X11 and a Window
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- Manager
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- have been installed and debugged.
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- I usually install Gentoo via ssh.
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- The article I read about the removal of Linux console's
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- backscrolling
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- feature said it was mostly due to lack of a maintainer for that
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- code,
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- and that if somebody stepped forward to maintain it, it could
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- be revived.
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- I'm doing my best to step forward, but I suspect that will be
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- almost as
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- difficult as fixing the bugs in it. +ADs--)
+AD4- +AD4- And so it transpired. I subscribed to the linux-kernel list for a
+AD4- +AD4- short
+AD4- +AD4- time, and offered my services in a post. Not one single reply did
+AD4- +AD4- I get.
+AD4- +AD4- That list is not a friendly one. It gets an almost unmanageable
+AD4- +AD4- +AH4-2000
+AD4- +AD4- posts a day, the vast bulk of which are patches, fragmented into,
+AD4- +AD4- perhaps, one diff hunk per post.
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- I'm disappointed that the decision to cut out this important
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- feature was
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- taken without any serious attempt to find a maintainer. I have
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- the
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- impression (though I may be wrong), that the problem was talked
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- about on
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- the linux kernel mailing list, but nobody there took it upon
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- himself to
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- post on any of the more hard-core distributions' mailing lists,
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- such as
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- gentoo's.
+AD4- +AD4- I've come to realise that Linus Torvalds, who personally took the
+AD4- +AD4- decision to remove the scrolling, doesn't care about users, and
+AD4- +AD4- indeed
+AD4- +AD4- regards them with disdain. He cares about +AF8-customers+AF8-, and Linux's
+AD4- +AD4- customers are RedHat, Suse, IBM, Intel, and the other HW
+AD4- +AD4- manufacturers.
+AD4- +AD4- RedHat customers don't use the console, therefore the console isn't
+AD4- +AD4- important. It's a bit like Microsoft's attitude towards users.
+AD4- +AD4- Sure, Linus went through the motions of pretending to try to find a
+AD4- +AD4- maintainer, but didn't put any serious effort into it. He argued
+AD4- +AD4- that
+AD4- +AD4- +ACI-nobody+ACI- uses it anyway, therefore it is unimportant, which is an
+AD4- +AD4- ironic
+AD4- +AD4- echo of the argument that nobody uses Linux on a desktop PC.
+AD4- +AD4- Even if the bugs came to be fixed, I doubt the scrolling would be
+AD4- +AD4- allowed
+AD4- +AD4- back into the kernel, for the above reasons. Exactly what the bugs
+AD4- +AD4- are
+AD4- +AD4- in the scrolling code wasn't gone into on the list, despite more
+AD4- +AD4- than one
+AD4- +AD4- contributor asking.
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- FWOW, if you really want backscrolling on the console, you can
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- get
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- that with screen, but doing so would drive me nuts, since I'd
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- have to
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- break all my fingers to stop them from typeing ctrl-A to move
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- the
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- start of a line. I've switched screen's meta-character a few
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- times,
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- but everytime I try that I find my fingers already have
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- something else
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- assigned to that control character (which I had forgotten
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- about). It
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- would be nice if I could print out my fingers' assignment table
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- to
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- find an unused control character, but that doesn't seem to be
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- how it
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- +AD4- works.
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- Can one set up a +ACI-basic+ACI- screen which doesn't use a meta-
+AD4- +AD4- +AD4- character?
+AD4- +AD4- I don't know what I'll be doing, long term. For the moment, I'll
+AD4- +AD4- be
+AD4- +AD4- hanging onto the working kernel I've got, old though it may be
+AD4- +AD4- (4.19.97).
+AD4- +AD4- It might be possible (I'm not sure) to hook up a user space program
+AD4- +AD4- to
+AD4- +AD4- the keys +ADw-shift+AD4--+ADw-PageUp/Down+AD4- which would take care of the
+AD4- +AD4- scrolling.
+AD4- +AD4- This would obviously not work with early kernel messages, but would
+AD4- +AD4- be
+AD4- +AD4- better than nothing. I had a look at the GNU screen source code
+AD4- +AD4- yesterday to see how it managed such things, but it is very
+AD4- +AD4- sparsely
+AD4- +AD4- commented, and thus hard work to understand.
+AD4- +AD4- Maybe I should just cut my losses, and convert to using one of the
+AD4- +AD4- BSDs.
+AD4-
+AD4- 2000 posts per day on Linux kernel list would be more than
+AD4- unmanageable for me+ACE- I wouldn't say +ACI-almost+ACIAIQ-
+AD4-
+AD4- Is Linus Torvalds' removal of console scrolling the reason why Scroll
+AD4- Lock does not work on the console with System Rescue CD or USB, while
+AD4- with FreeBSD and NetBSD, I can press Scroll Lock and scroll back?
+AD4-
+AD4- I like that ability but don't think Linus Torvalds is listening or
+AD4- reading this.
+AD4-
+AD4- Further, with System Rescue console, the lines/text go only partway
+AD4- down.
+AD4-
+AD4- Using screen, now at v4.8, means having to remember a lot of key
+AD4- functions, you need a separate reference screen to look them up.
+AD4-
+AD4- There is also tmux, which is part of the base system in NetBSD but
+AD4- not FreeBSD.
+AD4-
+AD4- If Linus cared about his users, he could make the kernel headers more
+AD4- user-friendly, installing kernel headers should not be any more
+AD4- complicated than copying or downloading.
+AD4-
+AD4- Console scrolling is especially useful with an OS or distro that is
+AD4- built from the ground up, like Gentoo, Void or Arch, as opposed to
+AD4- being installed all at once.
+AD4-
+AD4- If more Linux users would go to and try NetBSD or FreeBSD, those OSes
+AD4- would have more users, more ideas, more ability to improve.
+AD4-
+AD4- You can even cross-compile NetBSD from Linux. You'd need NetBSD
+AD4- source tree, but don't have to do anything special to install kernel
+AD4- headers.
+AD4-
+AD4- Tom
+AD4-
+AD4-
You're getting this second-hand since it was my brother who actually
looked into it, so pardon anything I misremember, but the big problem
is that adding unicode support to vgacon would need a near total
rewrite, and nobody wants to do that since it's a terrible hackjob to
start with.
kmscon is slated to be the replacement. You might want to see if that
can do what you need.
LMP