Re: [gentoo-user] Console scrollback

[Laurence Perkins <lperkins@openeye.net>]

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