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Date:      Sat, 8 Jan 2000 09:48:01 -0500
From:      "Allen Pulsifer" <pulsifer@mediaone.net>
To:        "Kazutaka YOKOTA" <yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp>
Cc:        <freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG>, <jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
Subject:   RE: console support (was RIDE for BSD) 
Message-ID:  <NBBBJNDFEKPEHPFCLNLHGEADFCAA.pulsifer@mediaone.net>
In-Reply-To: <200001080640.PAA15557@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp>

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Kazu,

The comments on Linux were not mine.  But I was echo'ing the
orginal poster's request that the keyboard mapping and console
(screen) settings be set to defaults that make sense vis-a-vis
PC hardware and PC users' common expectations.  That simply means
that, to the extent possible, the ESC, ALT, BACKSPACE, INSERT,
DELETE, HOME, END, PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN, and "arrow" keys, etc.,
should do something reasonable to a person who has PC
experience, but no specific Unix or FreeBSD experience.

It is my understanding that one of the goals of FreeBSD is to
optimize the system for PC hardware.  Whatever out-of-the-box
behavior the system has, it should make sense to a *newbie*.
The experienced user can of course take care of themself
and remap the keys to anything they like.  But you shouldn't
have to spend hours learning the intimate details of the console,
termcaps, keycaps, emacs and whatever else, just to get the ESC,
ALT or BACKSPACE keys to do something useful.  This is far from
a "loose-loose" situation.

The screen drawing problem I experienced is a separate issue.
Like I said in my post:

   The IDE's (whose names I now forget) would often draw
   stuff on the screen randomly offset by one line or one column,
   and old stuff wouldn't get erased properly.  They also threw funny
   characters up on the screen when it looked like they were
   trying to produce formatting such as colored or highlighted
   text.  This made the tools impossible to use.  At the time I
   wasn't sure if it was me, my setup, the tools, or something in
   FreeBSD.

   I know this isn't a very good bug report, but if someone is
   actively working on this stuff or if there are any plans to
   revisit it, let me know and I'll put in better bug reports
   if/when I get a chance to revisit it.

The offer still stands.

Allen



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