On May 21, 2016, at 3:05 AM, Roger Shimizu <rogershim...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> First observation is that the way I normally do installations on this >> machine (I keep it around for exactly this kind of testing, so I do a fair >> number of installations on it) is to run screen as a terminal emulator on a >> desktop machine that is connected to the Plug via a USB serial connection. >> If I did that for this experiment, I’d wind up with screen running on the >> Plug inside of screen running on the Desktop and the thought of keeping >> track of all the levels of ctl-A gave me nightmares. > > Indeed. It will be messed up if running screen inside screen. > If you have any suggestion to avoid this, just let me know. > >> So, I changed to using “cu” to run the USB serial connection. That worked >> well enough. This, or some other workaround, will have to be described in the documentation for the feature. I suggest that it go in the release notes for the first official release to contain the feature. A wiki page is probably also appropriate. >> >> The installation proceeded smoothly while I experimented with the ctl-A >> <1-4> options. It would have been nice to have the option of a more >> spacious work-area — larger than 24x80 — but that’s a minor issue. > > I find this size of screen limitation, too. > But I think this limitation is not introduced by GNU/screen, it exists before. The kernel assumes that the default size of a serial console should be 24x80. This probably goes back to the early days of video terminals with UNIX in the 1980s. It is possible to change the assumed size of a serial console using the “stty” command with its “rows” and “columns” options. Unfortunately doing so doesn’t inform “screen” of the new size — you have to do that yourself by resizing the terminal window it’s running in. I can’t think of any way to automate that rather complicated process, so I guess the only sensible approach is to accept 24x80 as a given limitation and just live with it. After all, who are we to argue with 30 years of history! (-: Enjoy! Rick
