Re: console in 11.0-ALPHA4

For what it's worth: my two biggest grievances with the vt(4) vs. sc(4) is
the unordered updates in the graphics mode which makes watching quickly
scrolling text on something like virtual machine console funky and lack of
support in the libvgl(3). The latter I find particularly hard to explain,
since vt is supposed to be designed around graphics mode, so it should have
easier to interface that to userland. People built apps around those
interfaces, so unless we are going to replace libvgl with something else or
depreciate it, we better support both console backends in there.

-Max
On Jun 20, 2016 10:11 PM, "Chris H" <bsd-lists_at_bsdforge.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 20 Jun 2016 16:22:53 -0700 John Baldwin <jhb_at_freebsd.org> wrote
>
> > On Monday, June 20, 2016 04:54:11 PM Ernie Luzar wrote:
> > > Ed Maste wrote:
> > > > On 20 June 2016 at 14:29, Ernie Luzar <luzar722_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >> I found the cause of this boot time message
> > > >> "vicontrol: setting cursor type: Inappropriate ioctl for device"
> > > >>
> > > >> In my rc.conf I had this statement
> > > >> vidcontrol -c blink -h 250
> > > >> From testing it seems that vt does not handle the "blink" option for
> > > >> causing the cursor to blink. Is there a vt option to enable cursor
> > > >> blinking > >
> > > > I've submitted two PRs for the issues you reported here:
> > > > Bug 210413 - vidcontrol -c <normal|blink|destructive> does not work
> with
> > > > vt(4) Bug 210415 - vidcontrol -h <history size> does not work with
> vt(4)
> > > > (edit)
> > > > There is currently no option to enable cursor blinking.
> > >
> > >
> > > Further testing shows that:
> > >
> > > 1. The rc.conf option screen saver "saver= " and the "blanktime= "
> > > options work in vt for both text and graph modes.
> > >
> > > 2. The cursor copy/paste does not work in vt text mode. It only works
> in
> > > vt graph mode. vt needs to be fixed so copy/paste function also works
> in
> > > text mode.
> > >
> > > 3. Boot time splash screen does not work in vt at all no matter which
> > > mode is enabled. Using this in loader.conf
> > > splash_bmp_load="YES"
> > > bitmap_name="/boot/splash.bmp"
> > > bitload_load="YES"
> > >
> > > This works in 10.x. The splash screen function can not be allowed to be
> > > removed from the base system just because vt can not handle it. This
> > > also means any vt changes need to updated in the handbook section on
> > > splash screen.
> > >
> > > In conclusion, vt is not ready to replace the sc console driver yet. vt
> > > needs to be fixed before becoming the default in 11.0. Using vt as the
> > > default console driver effects every user. It completely changes the
> > > FreeBSD experience. It's detrimental to the public relations and the
> > > professional image of FreeBSD to publish the 11.0-RELEASE using vt in
> > > its current condition. If time doesn't permit to get these vt things
> > > fixed before publishing 11.0 then vt should not become the default
> > > console driver.
> >
> > OTOH, if you use EFI, then you can't use sc(4).  You get no working
> console
> > with EFI (which is becoming more popular) if you use sc(4).  You also do
> > not get non-ASCII characters with sc(4), so you don't have a UTF-8
> capable
> > console if you use sc(4).  You also do not have a working console after
> > loading the KMS drivers (either by starting X or via explicit kldload)
> when
> > using sc(4).  This affects just about every modern Intel system using an
> > Intel GPU (so more widespread than EFI even).
> >
> > There are tradeoffs in both directions.  Neither console is a subset of
> the
> > other.  However, sc(4) is not really extendable to support the things it
> is
> > missing.  vt(4) is actively worked on, and patches for the features it
> lacks
> > that you need are certainly welcomed.
> AMD, and ATI are also quite popular, as well as nVidia. In the case of
> nVidia, vt(4) is nearly as good as sc(4) on/in [U]EFI.
>
> I think the [original] point here was; for all that vt(4) intends to
> provide, it's just not ready for prime time, and as such, shouldn't
> be made default, just yet. :-)
>
> --Chris
> >
> > --
> > John Baldwin
>
>
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