Linux 5.9 Dropping Soft Scrollback Support From FB + VGA Console Code

[starshipeleven]

Yeah, I did install Weston to have something. Still it would be pretty cool with a very good console terminal with 4K, 24-bit colors and all that good stuff.

Does Weston have a GUI? I thought it was just a display manager/server/whatever component, not a full GUI

[uid313]

Unless something went VERY wrong, just having a secondary desktop available would have been enough. Like IceWM or something, not a full DE, just a GUI.

Yeah, I did install Weston to have something. Still it would be pretty cool with a very good console terminal with 4K, 24-bit colors and all that good stuff.

[schmidtbag]

Is anyone using less?
I mean for example dmesg | less will give me a scrollable output of the dmesg command

Was I using Linux wrong all this time? Should I have used some obscure functionality of Linux kernel instead?

I use less all the time. Its use of regex makes searching for things very easy, and the use of arrow keys or page up/down is nice too. I find less to be a really convenient way to read dmesg and log files.

[starshipeleven]

Is anyone using less?
I mean for example dmesg | less will give me a scrollable output of the dmesg command

Was I using Linux wrong all this time? Should I have used some obscure functionality of Linux kernel instead?

[skeevy420]

Well that's kinda Linus' point - hardly anybody cares to have such an environment, and those who do can just resort to userland tools, rather than burden the kernel with nice-to-have but not essential tools that need upkeep. It's really not a big deal to use something like screen, tmux, gpm, less, or some alternative shell. Most of us who use a CLI do so through a terminal emulator, which makes life much easier. I have 2 systems I regularly work with that don't have a GUI installed (one of which is actually a laptop) and I'm perfectly fine with the minimal features, because if I really wanted more, I'd use something else.

I disagree on that point because all these extra tools to create those environments wouldn't exist if people didn't want one, but the other half of your first sentence is why I jumped on the systemd bandwagon in regards to a standardized console environment. If the system boots far enough in that systemd is in full effect, we might as well be using userspace tools for shiny, pretty consoles. I also figure that if the init system can deal with bringing up networks and mess around with users' $HOME directories, it can dictate a set of tools so the console comes with standard commands and, at a minimum, can scale to whatever resolution is in use since not all methods to adjust the font are available to non-root users or are able to be done if the system is crashed and we're just looking over the output before a hard reset.

[starshipeleven]

My GNOME was broken some days ago, so I couldn't run X nor Wayland and was forced to repair the system using the console.

I would like a 4K console with Unicode, 256 color support, 24-bit true color support. Maybe some really nice looking 4K-suitable font too. Mouse support would be nice too.

Unless something went VERY wrong, just having a secondary desktop available would have been enough. Like IceWM or something, not a full DE, just a GUI.

[pmorph]

Nobody uses this? Damn, I must be really behind in times... Well, not a mission critical thingy.

[linuxgeex]

Linus could have jokingly stated that he had come to agree with Tannenbaum re Micro/Monolithic Kernel design and as a first step in the MicroKernel design he had decided to migrate the soft scrollback to userspace lol.

[mulenmar]

Wtf? I need that functionality every time an nVidia driver update partially-fails, and I have to peer through the log to figure out what went wrong!

Serious Linus, you need to pick a lane for your software -- desktop/laptop with appropriate, maintained scheduler, or barebones server/hypervisor.

[schmidtbag]

The only problem with the other suggestions is it that they may or may not be available for everyone in every scenario whereas this was.

Reading comments here leads me to think that we need a modernized console envrionment. Something designed to work with hardware like mice and graphics cards. While that already exists in various userspace tools, there isn't any agreed upon standard which is why I'm also surprised that systemd hasn't taken up the crappy default console experience cause.

Well that's kinda Linus' point - hardly anybody cares to have such an environment, and those who do can just resort to userland tools, rather than burden the kernel with nice-to-have but not essential tools that need upkeep. It's really not a big deal to use something like screen, tmux, gpm, less, or some alternative shell. Most of us who use a CLI do so through a terminal emulator, which makes life much easier. I have 2 systems I regularly work with that don't have a GUI installed (one of which is actually a laptop) and I'm perfectly fine with the minimal features, because if I really wanted more, I'd use something else.