On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 4:54 AM Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:

> Hello, Michael.
>
> On Mon, Apr 05, 2021 at 18:08:58 -0500, Michael Jones wrote:
>
> [ .... ]
>
> > Without looking at the patch itself:
>
> > Have you considered something like kmscon as a userland alternative?
>
> To be honest, no.  I wasn't really aware of it when I starting working on
> the Linux console.
>
> According to Wikipedia, the last release was in 2013, and development
> stopped altogether in 2015.  The Gentoo package for it is masked.
>

Good points, and I can't speak to the code cleanliness of kmscon, or
potential security problems.

That being said, even though I was annoyed when the scrollback was removed
from the kernel, I do understand the reason for it being removed. It does
seem like the kind of functionality that would be better provided by
userspace.


> > I installed it on my laptop, and aside from not working with gpmd or
> > consolation for mouse support, it's a perfectly functional local tty.
>
> I suppose it's one of these programs that once working, pretty much
> carries on working for ever.
>

That's entirely possible :-)
Maybe someone (not necessarily you) will find the removal of the scrollback
buffer to be enough motivation to bring kmscon back to life as a project.