Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 22:12:07 +1000 (EST)
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
To: Dima Dorfman <dima@unixfreak.org>
Cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org>, arch@FreeBSD.ORG, sheldonh@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: {kbd,vid}control insanity patch
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0105312141420.25396-100000@besplex.bde.org>
In-Reply-To: <20010531052923.21EE03E0B@bazooka.unixfreak.org>
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On Wed, 30 May 2001, Dima Dorfman wrote:
> Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> writes:
> > Not OK. The "vid" in vidcontrol means "video", not "vty". The keyboard
> > functions were intentionally split off from the video functions when
> > vidcontrol(1) and kbdcontrol(1) were spawned from syscons(1). Everything
> > may belong in syscons(1) again, but the interfaces should not be
> > gratuitously different from those in the utilities for other console
> > drivers. pcvt already has enough gratuitous differences in its scon(1)
> > and kcon(1) utilities.
>
> I'm not quite sure what you're objecting to here; is it the option
> names (the fact that they'd have to be different) or that
> keyboard-related options are going into vid[eo]control? Perhaps both?
> Anyway, the option names are different simply because vidcontrol
> already has options with the orignal letters. I agree with your
> assertion that keyboard stuff shouldn't be in a program that's
> supposed to control video.
I'm mostly objecting to this. (Only bell control doesn't really belong
in kdbcontrol, but it doesn't really belong in vidcontrol either.)
> However, DES is right that it is
> needlessly confusing to have two programs for vty-specific syscons
> stuff.
It doesn't seem confusing to me. You use kbdcontrol for keyboard things
vidcontrol for screen things. There are actually 4 programs -- there
are also vidfont(1) and kbdmap(1). (BUG: the BUGS section of kbdmap.1
refers to wrong programs).
pcvt has even more programs: scon(1), cursor(1) and loadfont(1) for the
screen, kcon(1) and vt220keys(1) for the screen, and ispcvt(1) to check
for console correctness.
> So what do you (and Sheldon) suggest? Rename vidcontrol to
> <something-else>control? Is the reason for splitting syscons(1) into
> kbdcontrol(1) and vidcontrol(1) still valid (what was the reason,
> anyway?)?
I'm happy with things where they are now (only history buffer control
was very misplaced).
I think the split had something to to with splitting the device drivers
and or with plans to use the same interfaces for different console
drivers where possible. From the FreeBSD-1 log messages:
RCS file: /home/ncvs/src1/usr.sbin/vidcontrol/vidcontrol.c,v
Working file: vidcontrol.c
head: 1.4
...
----------------------------
revision 1.1
date: 1994/05/20 12:20:38; author: sos; state: Exp;
New vidcontrol utility replaces old syscons(1)
Font files are now uuencoded, and so are the scrnmaps.
Also allows changing colors and cursor type
Bruce
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