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Re: std location for system console


From: Marcus Brinkmann
Subject: Re: std location for system console
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 21:12:54 +0200
User-agent: Mutt/1.4i

On Sun, Sep 01, 2002 at 11:58:39AM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> /dev/console should be a single node, and should be wherever the
> "virtual" console is--that is, /dev/console should not necessarily be
> wedded to a particular piece of *hardware*, but rather to whatever the
> "canonical system console" is.  Think here of the console indirection
> ioctl that many Unix systems have, whereby you can designate any
> terminal as "the console", and then /dev/console goes there.

I am not familiar with that.  Where can I find more info?

Well, as for redirecting, Roland's term changes should cover that. 
It will start out as pointing to the Mach console device, and then will be
redirected to the first virtual console of the standard console server, eg
that one which gets a bunch of gettys at startup via /dev/ttyNUMBER.
But those /dev/ttyNUMBER need to point somewhere, and that is what is talked
about here.

> I have no particular advice about naming the "hordes of virtual
> consoles".  I think the Linux names have the advantage of familiarity
> for some people.

There are no Linux names, as Linux doesn't split up the console from the
terminal.  Frankly, I have no idea what you are thinking of here.

> Unlike Roland, I dislike subdirectories in /dev, but
> it's not really a very big deal.
> 
> Remind me why these are somename/NUMBER/console and not just
> somename/NUMBER?

Sometimes I wonder where you have been when all this has been discussed. ;)

The console server provides three access nodes for each virtual console it
provides:  "console" for term, "display" for clients to get the screen
matrix and its changes, and "input" for clients to add input to the virtual
console.

It simply makes a lot of sense to bundle all those nodes into a single
directory NUMBER rather than having console/NUMBER, display/NUMBER etc.  One
reason is that it better reflects the hierarchical structure.  Another is
that you can request dir notifications from someplace/ to be informed about
new virtual consoles, a third one is that it is easier to lookup the parts
of a console (first you get a port to the NUMBER directory, and then you
lookup display and input).

Thanks,
Marcus

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU      http://www.gnu.org    marcus@gnu.org
Marcus Brinkmann              The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/




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