Re: [gentoo-user] Console scrollback

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Grant.

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 12:32:28 -0700, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 1/13/21 11:14 AM, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > This is appalling.  I do all my work on the console (apart from web 
> > browsing), and with this development, Linux effectively becomes 
> > unusable to me.  I will NOT be bullied into using second rate 
> > alternatives like X-Windows terminals.

> Wow.  I don't think I've run into someone that was a devout 
> {physical,virtual} /console/ user in quite a while.

> I'm curious what you do in the Linux console that can't be done in a 
> terminal emulator.

Well, there's really not much that can't be done in a terminal emulator.
But it's the manner of the doing that's important.  Doing text work in X
is   s l u g g i s h.  Changing from one application to another, which
would be achieved by, say Alt-F4 on a console takes more key sequences
in X, and is less than instantaneous.  The X terminal emulator tends not
to occupy the whole screen - it tends to have title bars, menu items,
tabs even, which just distract from the task at hand.  Maybe it can be
set up to take the whole screen, but that's work.  And the fonts used
tend to be less distinct and helpful than the 16 x 8 bitmaps I have on
the console.  And X windows steals useful key sequences, such as
Alt-Tab.  On an Emacs session, in three columns on a console, I can
display 195 consecutive lines of a source file simultaneously.

I could go on, but ...

That's not to say there aren't problems with the tty console - even
before the screen scrolling was removed altogether, it wasn't exactly
anything to write home about.  And it would be nice to have more than 16
colours available.  But, on balance, I'll stick with the console.

> I know that there is a lot of difference in different terminal 
> emulators.  --  I *strongly* prefer XTerm as it does things that other 
> terminal emulators have never heard of.

> Please share if you do things that /can/ be done in the Linux console 
> that /can't/ be done in a terminal emulator.

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.

> If it's just preference, then hat's off to you.



> -- 
> Grant. . . .
> unix || die

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).