Re: clearing the screen - framebuffer insanity
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 06:19:21PM -0800, Joe Riel wrote: Just wondering, what is a framebuffer console? And how would I know whether I was using one? It means that your text mode screens, instead of being a real text mode, are actually graphics mode, with characters being displayed by writing bitmaps to the screen. It exists to allow Linux to be usable on non-PC machines that don't know what VGA is. As a side effect it allows PCs to be configured to run pseudo-'text' modes other than the standard 80x25. So does SVGATextMode, but using a real text mode screen, so without the large overhead. Unfortunately the appearance of framebuffer mode meant that whoever was responsible for SVGATextMode dropped it in 1999, with the result that newer video cards may be unsupported. I note that kernel 2.4.20 only has framebuffer listed under the experimental options, so maybe SVGATextMode will get going again? If you have a PC, and want a change from 80x25, use SVGATextMode. If it doesn't support your video card, hack it until it does. To find out if you're running framebuffer: dmesg | grep -i vga I think you get 'fb' somewhere in the output if you're using framebuffer. Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clearing the screen - framebuffer insanity
On Tue, 2002-12-10 at 00:47, Pigeon wrote: On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 06:19:21PM -0800, Joe Riel wrote: Just wondering, what is a framebuffer console? And how would I know whether I was using one? It means that your text mode screens, instead of being a real text mode, are actually graphics mode, with characters being displayed by writing bitmaps to the screen. It exists to allow Linux to be usable on non-PC machines that don't know what VGA is. As a side effect it allows PCs to be configured to run pseudo-'text' modes other than the standard 80x25. So does SVGATextMode, but using a real text mode screen, so without the large overhead. Unfortunately the appearance of framebuffer mode meant that whoever was responsible for SVGATextMode dropped it in 1999, with the result that newer video cards may be unsupported. I note that kernel 2.4.20 only has framebuffer listed under the experimental options, so maybe SVGATextMode will get going again? If you have a PC, and want a change from 80x25, use SVGATextMode. If it doesn't support your video card, hack it until it does. To find out if you're running framebuffer: dmesg | grep -i vga I think you get 'fb' somewhere in the output if you're using framebuffer. Pigeon I don't believe I've ever seen the framebuffer code on the 2.4.* kernel sources be listed outside Experimental (I've had the source of most kernels of the 2.4 series, except for the very quickly replaced due to ugly bugs versions.) As such, I'm very surprised to hear that so many distributions are putting out stock kernels with it - just installed Red Hat on a client's workstation (his choice, he'd picked up a set of linuxcentral CDs and knows that I charge for burning images,) and iirc, it switches on a generic framebuffer as part of running its installation toy, er, system. It did support his Riva TNT card cleanly though, which surprised me. I know that atyfb was still capable of hanging my system on simply scrolling a console as recently as 2.4.12, so I can see classifying it substantively as Experimental. Someday I might even look at the idea of putting old, diskless boxes on as a network for my machine as X terminals and look at whether a single kernel can support multiple different cards with framebuffers ;) -- Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: clearing the screen
Hello Dominic, Am 15:40 2002-12-05 -0800 hat Dominic Iadicicco geschrieben: How do I set it up in bash, so that when I logout it will clear the screen first? You can setup your '~/.bash_logout' (for the bash) or '~/.logout' (for tcsh) file. But with 'clear' yo clear only the current screen, but you can scroll back... Michelle -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clearing the screen - framebuffer insanity
Just wondering, what is a framebuffer console? And how would I know whether I was using one? Joe Riel -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clearing the screen - framebuffer insanity
On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 at 11:54:52AM -0500, Jason Wojciechowski wrote: Nathan E Norman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Note that some people (like Linus) say that anyone who runs a framebuffer console is insane. Why? Because it's slow and hacky and if you have hardware VGA you're much better off using it. If nothing else, scrolling fb consoles disables interrupts for a _very_ long time, which destroys your latency. -rob msg17702/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: clearing the screen - framebuffer insanity
On Fri, 06 Dec 2002 the mental interface of Mark L. Kahnt told: On Fri, 2002-12-06 at 20:31, Nathan E Norman wrote: On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 at 11:54:52AM -0500, Jason Wojciechowski wrote: Nathan E Norman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Note that some people (like Linus) say that anyone who runs a framebuffer console is insane. ^ stupid! Linus (from a quote and various other observations I've seen) considers framebuffer on i386, umm, less than ideal (my words) as a general configuration choice as, from my understanding of the words I've seen and how it exists in the kernel, it is an incomplete and inconsistent implementation on i386 - some graphics cards are not so well supported as others, and simple SVGA functions are capable of the significant range of framebuffer functions with vastly less overhead than running the console strictly in graphics mode. Framebuffer is needed on some systems that don't have text modes comparable to the PC-style systems, but unless you *need* framebuffer functions on an i386-style PC, you are not necessarily doing things the most efficient way if you are doing most of your work on the console strictly with text and no modified fonts, and as various graphics cards only have *experimental* code implementing framebuffer, you are playing with potential buggy code in the kernel for not necessarily any performance benefit over a currently more reliable user-mode solution. I am running framebuffer at vt's since 2 years now on i386 without problems. I.e to read mails with mutt on a vt is quite more comfortable to read and to handle as on a X-Window. I view pictures and pdf`s with fbi (fbgs), my vt's are running with fbgetty. Never had any problems, so why it is insane? Never found a bug in the *experimental* drivers. Elimar -- .~. /V\ L I N U X /( )\ Phear the Penguin ^^-^^ msg17599/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: clearing the screen - framebuffer insanity
Elimar Riesebieter ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Fri, 06 Dec 2002 the mental interface of Mark L. Kahnt told: On Fri, 2002-12-06 at 20:31, Nathan E Norman wrote: On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 at 11:54:52AM -0500, Jason Wojciechowski wrote: Nathan E Norman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Note that some people (like Linus) say that anyone who runs a framebuffer console is insane. ^ stupid! This seemed to be precisely the reaction people had to Linus' original quote. I don't have a link handy, but a google search for linus framebuffer should turn up the mailing list thread in the archive. I had gone searching to see if he would give any reasons, but, as far as I could tell, he didn't, just stating the insanity as fact. -- Jason Wojciechowski http://wonka.hampshire.edu/~jason msg17611/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: clearing the screen - framebuffer insanity
On Sat, 2002-12-07 at 07:51, Elimar Riesebieter wrote: On Fri, 06 Dec 2002 the mental interface of Mark L. Kahnt told: On Fri, 2002-12-06 at 20:31, Nathan E Norman wrote: On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 at 11:54:52AM -0500, Jason Wojciechowski wrote: Nathan E Norman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Note that some people (like Linus) say that anyone who runs a framebuffer console is insane. ^ stupid! Linus (from a quote and various other observations I've seen) considers framebuffer on i386, umm, less than ideal (my words) as a general configuration choice as, from my understanding of the words I've seen and how it exists in the kernel, it is an incomplete and inconsistent implementation on i386 - some graphics cards are not so well supported as others, and simple SVGA functions are capable of the significant range of framebuffer functions with vastly less overhead than running the console strictly in graphics mode. Framebuffer is needed on some systems that don't have text modes comparable to the PC-style systems, but unless you *need* framebuffer functions on an i386-style PC, you are not necessarily doing things the most efficient way if you are doing most of your work on the console strictly with text and no modified fonts, and as various graphics cards only have *experimental* code implementing framebuffer, you are playing with potential buggy code in the kernel for not necessarily any performance benefit over a currently more reliable user-mode solution. I am running framebuffer at vt's since 2 years now on i386 without problems. I.e to read mails with mutt on a vt is quite more comfortable to read and to handle as on a X-Window. I view pictures and pdf`s with fbi (fbgs), my vt's are running with fbgetty. Never had any problems, so why it is insane? You are using the aspects of framebuffer that justify it - if the only graphics a system ever does is in X11 and it isn't running on framebuffer, using framebuffer to effectively *emulate* text mode on a graphic screen is a good bit of relative overhead and making the effective text mode far more hardware specific than if it had been handled through SVGA support. Never found a bug in the *experimental* drivers. I had problems for a good stretch of kernels with atyfb - about the only chances of hanging my console was in scrolling a framebuffer vt while X11 was also running - not always, but enough times. Full screen presentation of text also often didn't display correctly unless I switched to another vt and then back. I'd call that buggy (although it works fine now,) and I've heard rumblings that problems exist with numerous other graphic chips currently. Part of the underlying question is whether you want to commit your cpu(s) to framebuffer, setiathome, halting, or other demands, particularly for users that use no part of framebuffer other than compiling it into the kernel (ie. 80x25, no fbgetty, no fbgs, no fbi, no special font, no fbtv - I have used it with my tv tuner card and a vcr to play back very sharp images of a kid's birthday party.) In that case, on i386 PC-style platforms, it is doing basic text mode functions the hard way around. Me, I use framebuffer, the Sun 12x22 font which makes the display vastly sharper for me to read (and as I've stated previously on this topic, I've worked in graphic design, and pay strong attention to typography, and the Sun 12x22 font is a very handsome character set, similar to Palatino,) fbi and fbgs when X11 is not available (ie. dingy me broke some setting) and fbtv. I've never gotten fbgetty to work in a way that would warrant my switching from getty at this point, but I suspect that is as much a shortcoming in documentation as it is in my time to think out what I want to do with it (and no, I don't have the time to think that out now for a sudden eduacation through this mailing list.) For me, framebuffer is a plus, but only very rarely does it come close to being essential for me, and if atyfb had stayed buggy, or I had a different graphics card where the framebuffer was still not working, I wouldn't be running it. I can understand Linus' position: it has been a lot of work for the kernel developers in an area that, while essential for a handful of users, is not much beyond an aesthetic benefit for most others, if they even actually use it, and given that still much work is needed. It also isn't in one of the areas of computing aesthetics that I get the impression he finds most interesting, as it is not an area of innovative logic, but rather basic functional code needing to focus on matching the performance needs of hardware - if he was more interested in this sort of code, we'd have X11 in the kernel ;) I could be wrong - he could love the concept and be frustrated with its slow completion or greater complexity due to the breadth of cards and functions to be implemented, but I've long found that what I
Re: clearing the screen - framebuffer insanity
Nathan E Norman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Note that some people (like Linus) say that anyone who runs a framebuffer console is insane. Why? -- Jason Wojciechowski http://wonka.hampshire.edu/~jason msg17452/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: clearing the screen
also sprach Ben Hartshorne [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2002.12.06.0057 +0100]: .zsh_logout -- zsh .zlogout ... at least `man zshall` does not contain zsh_logout... -- .''`. martin f. krafft [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian developer, admin, and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing a system NOTE: The public PGP keyservers are broken! Get my key here: http://people.debian.org/~madduck/gpg/330c4a75.asc msg17513/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: clearing the screen - framebuffer insanity
On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 at 11:54:52AM -0500, Jason Wojciechowski wrote: Nathan E Norman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Note that some people (like Linus) say that anyone who runs a framebuffer console is insane. Why? Beats me ... STFW for the answer. I run a framebuffer; Sparc sucks without one. -- Nathan Norman - Incanus Networking mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd better not start writing it. -- Edsger Dijkstra msg17544/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: clearing the screen - framebuffer insanity
On Fri, 2002-12-06 at 20:31, Nathan E Norman wrote: On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 at 11:54:52AM -0500, Jason Wojciechowski wrote: Nathan E Norman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Note that some people (like Linus) say that anyone who runs a framebuffer console is insane. Why? Beats me ... STFW for the answer. I run a framebuffer; Sparc sucks without one. -- Nathan Norman - Incanus Networking mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd better not start writing it. -- Edsger Dijkstra Linus (from a quote and various other observations I've seen) considers framebuffer on i386, umm, less than ideal (my words) as a general configuration choice as, from my understanding of the words I've seen and how it exists in the kernel, it is an incomplete and inconsistent implementation on i386 - some graphics cards are not so well supported as others, and simple SVGA functions are capable of the significant range of framebuffer functions with vastly less overhead than running the console strictly in graphics mode. Framebuffer is needed on some systems that don't have text modes comparable to the PC-style systems, but unless you *need* framebuffer functions on an i386-style PC, you are not necessarily doing things the most efficient way if you are doing most of your work on the console strictly with text and no modified fonts, and as various graphics cards only have *experimental* code implementing framebuffer, you are playing with potential buggy code in the kernel for not necessarily any performance benefit over a currently more reliable user-mode solution. -- Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
clearing the screen
How do I set it up in bash, so that when I logout it will clear the screen first? __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clearing the screen
On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 03:40:19PM -0800, Dominic Iadicicco wrote: How do I set it up in bash, so that when I logout it will clear the screen first? Use the .bash_logout file to declare what you want to do when logging out. Simon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clearing the screen
On Thu, 2002-12-05 at 17:43, Simon Law wrote: On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 03:40:19PM -0800, Dominic Iadicicco wrote: How do I set it up in bash, so that when I logout it will clear the screen first? Use the .bash_logout file to declare what you want to do when logging out. Unless you aren't using bash ;p Someone on #debian once told me how to handle this in a more elegant manner... Unfortunately, I can't remember - but it was a system-wide config file.. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Perhaps the pertinent maintainer could be asked to place this as a default, as it is not uncommon to expect the system to clear the screen when you logout, and can be a security risk if you do not.. -Justin -- Justin Ryan [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: clearing the screen
On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 06:43:46PM -0500, Simon Law wrote: On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 03:40:19PM -0800, Dominic Iadicicco wrote: How do I set it up in bash, so that when I logout it will clear the screen first? Use the .bash_logout file to declare what you want to do when logging out. btw, 'clear' is the command you want to put in your logout file... .bash_logout-- bash .ksh_logout -- ksh .zsh_logout -- zsh .logout -- csh, tcsh but read the shell in question's man page (or experimnt) to make sure... -ben -- Ben Hartshorne benAThartshorneDOTnet http://ben.hartshorne.net PGP keyserver:pgp.dtype.org Please encrypt all communications msg17318/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: clearing the screen
On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 05:49:47PM -0600, Justin Ryan wrote: On Thu, 2002-12-05 at 17:43, Simon Law wrote: On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 03:40:19PM -0800, Dominic Iadicicco wrote: How do I set it up in bash, so that when I logout it will clear the screen first? Use the .bash_logout file to declare what you want to do when logging out. Unless you aren't using bash ;p I'd like to point out that Dominic specifically specified Bash. Someone on #debian once told me how to handle this in a more elegant manner... Unfortunately, I can't remember - but it was a system-wide config file.. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Perhaps the pertinent maintainer could be asked to place this as a default, as it is not uncommon to expect the system to clear the screen when you logout, and can be a security risk if you do not.. One could wrap around /usr/bin/login to clear the screen before prompting each time. But that probably has nasty side-effects that I haven't considered. Simon P.S.Please don't CC me on mailing list posts. I already read the list, so I'll see it there. Thanks. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clearing the screen
On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 05:49:47PM -0600, Justin Ryan wrote: On Thu, 2002-12-05 at 17:43, Simon Law wrote: On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 03:40:19PM -0800, Dominic Iadicicco wrote: How do I set it up in bash, so that when I logout it will clear the screen first? Use the .bash_logout file to declare what you want to do when logging out. Unless you aren't using bash ;p Someone on #debian once told me how to handle this in a more elegant manner... Unfortunately, I can't remember - but it was a system-wide config file.. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Perhaps the pertinent maintainer could be asked to place this as a default, as it is not uncommon to expect the system to clear the screen when you logout, and can be a security risk if you do not.. A few ideas: 1) Edit /etc/issue so that the 'clear' sequence is sent to the console when /etc/issue is displayed (and it's displayed right after you log out). How to do it? # clear clear.txt # cat clear.txt /etc/issue /tmp/issue # cp /tmp/issue /etc/issue I don't recommend this method. 2) If you are not running a framebuffer on the VT where your console is, install mingetty. It clears the screen when you logout. Note that mingetty and devfs can have interesting interactions if you aren't careful. 3) If you are using a framebuffer, install fbgetty. It also clears the screen when you log out. Note that some people (like Linus) say that anyone who runs a framebuffer console is insane. OTOH, on some arches it's not even an option to not use a framebuffer ... HTH, -- Nathan Norman - Incanus Networking mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Q: What's tiny and yellow and very, very, dangerous? A: A canary with the super-user password. msg17321/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: clearing the screen
On Thu, Dec 05, 2002 at 03:40:19PM -0800, Dominic Iadicicco wrote: How do I set it up in bash, so that when I logout it will clear the screen first? In your home directory, have a shell script named .bash_logout with the clear command in it. Best of Luck, -Gleef -- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clearing the screen
On Thu, 05 Dec 2002, Dominic Iadicicco wrote: How do I set it up in bash, so that when I logout it will clear the screen first? Hi, I did this in my ~/.bash_profile: alias exit=clear;exit Oliver -- ... don't touch the bang bang fruit -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
