Re: Questions from a kernel hacker wannabe

Graydon (graydon@lara.on.ca)
Thu, 26 Aug 1999 04:12:01 -0400

On Wed, Aug 25, 1999 at 11:55:10PM -0700, Zack Weinberg scripsit:
> mullein wrote:
> > The consoles are instances of the getty program (mingetty is the version
> > used in rh 5.2 and suse 6.1) called from /etc/inittab. it shows up in ps
> > ax as /sbin/mingetty ttyX. I don't know how it traps alt+fX, but mingetty
> > source would probably be illuminating as to how userland processes can.
>
> Unless X is involved, console switching happens entirely within the
> kernel. See drivers/char/vt.c, include/linux/vt.h. Mingetty (and
> agetty, and util-linux getty) don't do anything.

So that means it's likely a kernel code difficulty if an frame buffer
console on an i386 (well, K6) wraps the end of a long line back on
to the beginning of the same line, rather than providing a next line?

(atyfb, from the 2.2.12pre8 release most recently, but it's been doing
this since I started using frame buffer consoles. Everything else
seems to work fine, although getting atyfb to go to 800x600 resolution
by passing boot time paramaters was frustrating enough that I tweaked
the compiled in defaults instead.)

-- 
graydon@ |The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a fiery Forge, 
lara.    |The Human Face a Furnace seal'd, The Human Heart its 
on.ca    |hungry Gorge. -- from Wllm. Blake, "A Divine Image", 1794 


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/