Re: Console handling (was: Re: Let's vote for PnP on 2.2)

Geert Uytterhoeven (Geert.Uytterhoeven@cs.kuleuven.ac.be)
Mon, 15 Dec 1997 09:47:56 +0100 (CET)

On Sun, 14 Dec 1997, Tuomas Heino wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Dec 1997, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> > > > Linux has never had different number of lines on different VTs.
> > >
> > > Are you sure? There used to be a comment about this in
> > > drivers/char/console.c.
> > > It said the feature was removed because `it's messy to have all consoles of
> > > potentially different sizes'.
> >
> > If so, it has been that not all the lines on the screen was used.
> > Linux has *never* been able to change the actual line count on
> > different screens.

`Linux' may have not, but `Linux/m68k' has been during the last 2 years!

> Maybe so in the kernel level - I still remember switching between 80x25
> "normal" console and 80x50 dosemu... that's just a font change, no timing
> changes... (nowadays using svgatextmode - different modes for different
> consoles would prolly be quite complicated with something like that, right?;)

It's not _that_ difficult. We did it.

It's also nice for multi-head support, since you don't want to use the same
size of console on a 14" and a 17" monitor. Yes, `Linux/m68k' does support
this too!! ;-)

Greetings,

Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven                     Geert.Uytterhoeven@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
Wavelets, Linux/{m68k~Amiga,PPC~CHRP}  http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~geert/
Department of Computer Science -- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven -- Belgium