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Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 09:27:28 -0600 (MDT)
From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To: Lars Eighner <luvbeastie@larseighner.com>
Subject: Re: Keep using syscons -- how?
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Cc: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
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On Wed, 22 Oct 2014, Lars Eighner wrote:

> On Wed, 22 Oct 2014, Polytropon wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 22 Oct 2014 04:25:12 -0500 (CDT), Lars Eighner wrote:
>>> What do I have to do or not do to keep being able to use syscons in VGA
>>> mode? Is there any way to keep the ability to switch between xwindows and
>>> syscons (in VGA i.e. text mode)?
>> 
>> Allow me a more general question. I'm not asking as
>> a "means of insult", but because I'm really interested
>> in the answer:
>> 
>> Why not use terminal emulators (xterm, rxvt, konsole,
>> gnome-terminal etc.) inside an X session?
>
> Because raster fonts are illegible compared to vga fonts,

The text-mode fonts are raster fonts, too.

> Text mode is robust.  That is really the bottom line.

Use vt(4) in text mode:

kern.vty=vt
hw.vga.textmode=1

The console will switch to graphics mode only if X is started.  At 
present, there is no way to switch back to text mode, nor a way to 
control which fonts are used or the resolution selected.  Some 
functionality of sc(4) is not yet present in text mode vt(4), like mouse 
cut and paste.  As far as I know, there are no technical problems that 
prevent these features.

And of course sc(4) is still present if the system does not use X at 
all.