Messages in this thread | | | From | "H. Peter Anvin" <> | Subject | Re: Console mapping problems? [I hear about these - I wanna know!] | Date | Wed, 10 Sep 1997 12:46:42 -0700 (PDT) |
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> > Is it possible to make it locale-based (if userspace)? > > IMHO it SHOULD be per-user and changeable ONLY on explicit request... That > > make sense? > > Per user has no sense. Per console has a better one.
Also would be very expensive in terms of kernel memory.
> > Perhaps a new console sequence to reset the fonts.... either that or only > > the font-set sequences be able to reset the font. > > Maybe. > > > Uhmm... Loading/unloading fonts is ioctl, right? <sigh> - this makes it > > REALLY hard to emulate console under, say, X (I _REALLY_ don't like > > Xterm's keyboard/display/font mapping). > > Yes, it's hard to emulate, but I know of no better way how to do it.
Well there is escape sequences (very easy to emulate, works across telnet etc.; disadvantage: makes it easy to utterly scramble someone else's console.) That is a reasonable thing to do if it is per-console.
If we want a more "out-of-band" solution I suggest creating a libconsole which maps to ioctl() for the kernel console; X and other user-space solutions can use sockets or X resources or whathaveyou to communicate. This separates the API from the IPC method used.
> > I think the latin-1 centeredness is from having 4 pages of maps: (AFAIK) > > 1 - default latin-1 > > 2 - graphical mapping > > 3 - IBM-PC mapping (for hysterical raisons :) > > 4 - userspace font > > Yes. The IBM-PC mapping is not for HR only, it's currently the > only way how to extend the VT100 graphics to something more usable. > > 5 - UTF8.
UTF-8 is not a map; it plugs directly into the Unicode layer. The 8-bit maps are maps from 8-bit charsets to Unicode.
> > VGA/text can handle up to 512 characters (some can handle more though - > > Yes, but at the expense of having only 8 background colors.
YM "foreground" HTH.
> The kernel should surely use only ASCII for its messages and the Latin-1 > set should be only a default setting of the translation tables, but they > must be fully reloadable by user programs.
Actually, the Latin-1 table in the kernel, selectable with ESC ( B is fine, but the ISO 2022 codes for other charsets should be honoured, and Latin-1 shouldn't be the automatic default.
-hpa
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