Changes/UseKmsconVTConsole
8 points by janus
8 points by janus
I just started using kmscon on my home devices. It is extremely pleasant to have a terminal with scalable fonts and Unicode support on the console. I'm actually surprised I didn't find it until Veronica Explains's recent article on her writerdeck, because I've been trying to get this outcome for a while with e.g. fbterm.
My biggest remaining gripe about it is that if you need to start a graphical session from the console, it can be quite difficult compared to doing so from the kernel console. In fact, I haven't found any way to do it other than forbidding kmscon on tty1 and running GDM there. Doubly disappointing because I was just getting used to starting some SDL apps and games directly from the console, full-screen (e.g. Lagrange, Luanti, and crawl-tiles).
Minor remaining gripes are no sixel support and an inexpressive config file format that makes things like changing themes a bigger deal than it should be.
My biggest remaining gripe about it is that if you need to start a graphical session from the console, it can be quite difficult compared to doing so from the kernel console. In fact, I haven't found any way to do it other than forbidding kmscon on tty1 and running GDM there. Doubly disappointing because I was just getting used to starting some SDL apps and games directly from the console, full-screen (e.g. Lagrange, Luanti, and crawl-tiles).
Do you have a link that goes into what the issues are with this? Veronica's writerdeck piece had me curious about kmscon, too, and I was thinking that my version of a writerdeck would let me use, e.g., Lagrange.
Seems to be this issue. I'll see this evening if the workaround in that issue fixes the problem (in Fedora 44) and if it causes any others.
Sidenote: isn't being able to run Lagrange directly from the console fun?
EDIT I forgot to mention that there is a script that is supposed to let you run graphical sessions from the console, and it seems to work without problem or without minor problems for many people. For me, it doesn't work at all. It's not the bug I linked to, because I'm not even running a new enough version to be affected by that one.
Sidenote: isn't being able to run Lagrange directly from the console fun?
It feels like an alternate, much more fun timeline, really.
Use kms-launch-gui ...
See my edit; I was aware of kmscon-launch-gui, and that it works for some people. Doesn't work for me, on a fairly fresh Fedora 44 install.
I hadn't read much about kmscon for many years. But it is now going to be the default on Fedora 45, which is scheduled for October.
that's really welcome change to see - fixing my own fuckups on a laptop will be way more pleasant
Except when you mess up your system in a way that prevents kmscon from working.
I have a vague memory of a similar tool on SunOS. I believe it was on the BSD based SunOS 4. It was a user space program that you would run on the console and it would give you a nicer console that would print and scroll much faster and with a more reasonably sized font. I think it was open source (from a SunSITE mirror CD perhaps?), not bundled with the OS.
Sadly I can't find any mention online. Can't remember the name for sure but I want to say something like tcons or tconsole.
I have the same vague memory but alas the same failure to remember what it was called. It was a great day when we discovered it at uni (back in the dark ages when SunOS was the only Unix we had available to us.)