From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Mon Oct 23 12:22:08 2017 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E9E23E4A56A for ; Mon, 23 Oct 2017 12:22:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ik@sjmulder.nl) Received: from out4-smtp.messagingengine.com (out4-smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.28]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id BF8C06E8F1 for ; Mon, 23 Oct 2017 12:22:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ik@sjmulder.nl) Received: from compute3.internal (compute3.nyi.internal [10.202.2.43]) by mailout.nyi.internal (Postfix) with ESMTP id AABEC20D70 for ; Mon, 23 Oct 2017 08:22:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: from frontend2 ([10.202.2.161]) by compute3.internal (MEProxy); Mon, 23 Oct 2017 08:22:00 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=sjmulder.nl; h= content-transfer-encoding:content-type:date:from:message-id :mime-version:subject:to:x-me-sender:x-me-sender:x-sasl-enc; s= mesmtp; bh=sYpmR6m8d6JrMv2S0IPr9iQNk7BpxrxAzLDpal3NWGQ=; b=CAStU 5R4brWlckawRR1vZ+GpMdncEYtVg459KP71AuRkKF1PIoEvX/NftXu7ir+t4r+CL +IpnCQ2DifBFQh/jPk2sF3AV1hQ1IqbV36rjhkqd8Mh0EsdBuF/StOV7NeklcIqi IkUEsaJDgQtaqfbOGPuiDEU+bTROAopXJ99u7o= DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d= messagingengine.com; h=content-transfer-encoding:content-type :date:from:message-id:mime-version:subject:to:x-me-sender :x-me-sender:x-sasl-enc; s=fm1; bh=sYpmR6m8d6JrMv2S0IPr9iQNk7Bpx rxAzLDpal3NWGQ=; b=nrNaPuzVBXAOEB+HdXm/XGj4BZ6U/LvzQomM0qJnYFFUX 6P3O55ncN7uVXcDt+1XINyAtkjzhcRgMAHr9on8CSWKpAy+7Jv+k+ffQaCqj2DqF 3bgLsUGt6Xl4JCmneXCSRTvHX+WtN8nRT+Uaq83ZlkMQ1cGEHqHvOoXjfMFxw+V9 im5S1MZug8BMMObtAuQV1Z3CuMB0BpsxeRXHR5aqMNAK0GQjppsnI9JYT1EGT/SW 95npIhm/2GGv0vZRTbF/HMALyjuc9K471Goyxer5EqI7rIp62KErUPGNtpMS+y5E VROj8GxT/hmUp/eLWpQC8pYj5AN/fwGwN+liYRdzQ== X-ME-Sender: Received: from [10.50.6.46] (unknown [87.213.224.178]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTPA id 4CEC5247D8 for ; Mon, 23 Oct 2017 08:22:00 -0400 (EDT) To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org From: "Sijmen J. Mulder" Subject: vt and tmux, overlapping responsibilities Message-ID: <32b2e36d-91d9-d3e5-b91d-80607bb57590@sjmulder.nl> Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2017 14:22:10 +0200 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.4.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Language: en-GB X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2017 12:22:09 -0000 Hi, vt (or st) is a virtual terminal with some features like scrollback and multiplexing on top of system primitives (I suppose a character/video display driver). tmux (or screen, etc) is a more advanced multiplexer but implemented on top of an existing terminal. Using tmux on vt then strikes me as an inelegant situation. We have a multiplexer and terminal emulator that goes unused because we're using another multiplexer and terminal emulator through it. It's rather like hooking up a media centre system to a 'smart TV'. One could either a) use a 'dumb' TV, or b) use a smarter TV that eliminates the need for the media centre system. In terms of virtual terminals, that means a) reducing vt's repsonsibilities to a minimum, or b) being able to run another multiplexer directly on the video/text driver, replacing vt. I don't mean to belittle the obvious complexities and realities such as that a terminal must be available very early on in the startup sequence, or having a multiplexer target a device rather than another terminal, etc. Just wanted to see if there's been any thinking on this front. Sijmen