On 2026-02-22, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> Hello, Gentoo.
>
> The topic of this post is my kernel patch which enables soft scrolling
> on Linux tty's with <shift><PgUp> and <shift><PgDn>, and also enables
> the GPM mouse utility on those scrolled regions.
>
> Attached is a patch which enables this facility in kernel 6.18.12 (and
> likely future 6.18.n versions, too).
>
> To use the patch:
> (i) cd /usr/src/linux-6.12.18-gentoo, or similar.
> (ii) patch -p1 < 6.12.18-GPM.20260222.diff.
> (iii) Configure the kernel as normal. Additionally, under Device
> drivers/Graphic Support/Console display driver support, enable
> CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE_SOFT_SCROLLBACK, set the buffer size to taste
> (it's default is 128 kB but I use 512 kB, personally) and accept the
> default enablement of CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE_SOFT_SCROLLBACK_GPM.
> (iv) Build the kernel and install it into your boot manager.
> (v) Reboot and enjoy! You can now use GPM in scrolled consoles.
>
> The usual disclaimers apply, here. If this patch breaks anything for
> you, please let me know, so that I can try to fix the bug. My only
> promise is that there's nothing malicious in the patch.
>
> If anybody still needs them, I've still got the patches for some earlier
> kernel versions too.
>
> Have fun!
Hi,
This is unrelated (not related to scrolling nor Gentoo, but pertains the
Linux virtual console), but in case someone knows something relevant:
John Goerzen yesterday wrote about how the virtual console now can't
trigger power saving when blanking [1].
Now I'm currently not able to do further testing, I'll do when I
can. But do any of you happen to know what may be going on here?
1) Is this a recent change (let's say, under one or two years ago) and
recent kernels lost that ability?
2) Is this GPU or driver-dependent?
3) Is there something else that, when enabled in the kernel, restores
the ability to start the screen sleep state?
Currently, I'm tempted to suspect 2 or 3, given that back when the
default changed - over five years ago - I found the commit changing it,
which said it didn't do power-saving anymore [2], despite it still doing
power saving on my setup. So, something along the lines of [2] actually
being accurate because I'm missing (in the sense of not figuring it out,
not in the sense of not having it in my kernel) something else that
happens to provide the power-saving transition?
[1] Blog post (also works via activitypub?)
https://changelog.complete.org/archives/42061-screen-power-saving-in-the-linux-console
[2]
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=a4199f5eb8096d63828f7333fa45650a7b0a99ed
--
Nuno Silva (njsg)
