On Wednesday 2003.08.06 08:29:37 -0400, Chris Heath wrote: > > Also, I think that console-keyboard drivers may be divided to 2 versions, > > with kernel build option: > > > > the simple, with fixed 8bit codepage, unused legacy things like VT100 graphics > > removed > > (for people who dont'n need i18n or work not so much in console) > > > > and the sophisticated, full-functional and well internationalized. > > Yes, I think this is the way to go. I imagine we will meet a lot of > resistance if we try to add heavyweight Unicode stuff into the existing > console. > > The heavyweight version would need a LOT of requirements gathering > before we even begin programming. It probably should include support > for: > > * lots of encodings, but use Unicode internally
Hmmm ... If I knew how to do this stuff myself (which I don't), I would not bother with any encoding except Unicode UTF-8 (If people did not like my patch, they wouldn't have to use it, right?). That would cut down on the requirements and complexity a bit ... (a BIG BIT, N'est-ce pas?). I (and many others ...) would argue that everyone needs to move to Unicode. So when you buy that shiny new version of Linux 5 years in the future, it's going to support Unicode very well, and it is perhaps no longer going to support the 3-5 mutually incompatible legacy encodings of your language that you previously had to struggle with ... > * user-space pluggability for extra-heavyweight stuff like Japanese > input methods or fonts I wonder if the object oriented design of SCIM (Simple Common Input Method: http://ns.turbolinux.com.cn/~suzhe/scim/index.html) could support CJK and other IMs on the console? > * bidi text (Arabic) > * variable width fonts (CJK), > * variable-width encodings (Unicode combining chars), Yes, it would be nice if console worked as well as (or better than) mlterm (http://mlterm.sourceforge.net/) does for bidi, ligatures and combining characters for complex layout languages > * absolute positioning for things like line drawing... > * ANSI / ECMA and VT100 compatibility > > Hmmm... I suspect I've hardly even scratched the surface and already this > looks like it's going to be way too big for the kernel. Maybe the > entire thing should be in user space. > > How important is it to have an in-kernel console? > > Chris > > -- > Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels > Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/ > -- Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
