[Heads up] TERM=xterm is now the default (on non-i386)

Hi folks,

I just committed the previously mentioned patch to SVN. Please refer to
the last part of the commit message to see what you can do when you run
into trouble.

----- Forwarded message from Ed Schouten <ed_at_FreeBSD.org> -----
> Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:54:55 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Ed Schouten <ed_at_FreeBSD.org>
> To: src-committers_at_freebsd.org, svn-src-all_at_freebsd.org,
> 	svn-src-head_at_freebsd.org
> Subject: svn commit: r199243 - in head: . etc/etc.amd64 etc/etc.arm
> 	etc/etc.ia64 etc/etc.mips etc/etc.powerpc etc/etc.sparc64 etc/root
> 	share/skel sys/conf sys/dev/syscons
> 	tools/tools/nanobsd/gateworks/Files...
> 
> Author: ed
> Date: Fri Nov 13 05:54:55 2009
> New Revision: 199243
> URL: http://svn.freebsd.org/changeset/base/199243
> 
> Log:
>   Switch the default terminal emulation style to xterm for most platforms.
>   
>   Right now syscons(4) uses a cons25-style terminal emulator. The
>   disadvantages of that are:
>   
>   - Little compatibility with embedded devices with serial interfaces.
>   - Bad bandwidth efficiency, mainly because of the lack of scrolling
>     regions.
>   - A very hard transition path to support for modern character sets like
>     UTF-8.
>   
>   Our terminal emulation library, libteken, has been supporting
>   xterm-style terminal emulation for months, so flip the switch and make
>   everyone use an xterm-style console driver.
>   
>   I still have to enable this on i386. Right now pc98 and i386 share the
>   same /etc/ttys file. I'm not going to switch pc98, because it uses its
>   own Kanji-capable cons25 emulator.
>   
>   IMPORTANT: What to do if things go wrong (i.e. graphical artifacts):
>   
>   - Run the application inside script(1), try to reduce the problem and
>     send me the log file.
>   - In the mean time, you can run `vidcontrol -T cons25' and `export
>     TERM=cons25' so you can run applications the same way you did before.
>     You can also build your kernel with `options TEKEN_CONS25' to make all
>     virtual terminals use the cons25 emulator by default.
>   
>   Discussed on:	current_at_
----- End forwarded message -----

Cheers,
-- 
 Ed Schouten <ed_at_80386.nl>
 WWW: http://80386.nl/