(Pre) SUMMARY - Frame buffer with a serial console

From: Francois Marcos (francois_marcos@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Apr 07 2000 - 13:09:51 CDT


Dear Managers,

Apparently, my question was a though one !!! I only
got one answer from Seth Rothenberg and I still can't
make it working...

Digging into the archives, I found an old summary
describing the same situation :

From: jeremy@softway.sw.oz.au (Jeremy Fitzhardinge)
Subject: Using a terminal as console (summary)
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 92 16:06:19 EST

Snipp....

My guess about running getty on the frame buffer:
Getty needs a terminal type device. Normally, this is
provided by the PROM monitor
with its console device, since the kernel itself has
no specific drivers for text
on a GC3 (I think). However, since the prom is
occupied making the terminal on
ttya be the console, it cannot also put a terminal
emulator onto the frame buffer,
and provide a tty type interface. This suggests that
another program to drive the
frame buffer as a tty is needed, then run getty on the
/dev entry thus provided.
I think someone mentioned such a program here a while
ago (tconsole?). I don't think
this is what it was written for, but it could work.
 

In those old days, that manager was trying to do
exactly what I'd like to achieve today, but
/dev/wscons wasn't there at that time. I really
believe wscons can be used to handle the frame buffer
even if /dev/console is busy with ttya.

What we "only" need is a driver which does exactly
what the console driver does: present a STREAMS
interface to the outside so ttymon can communicate
properly with it, and use /dev/wscons as the
"physical" terminal.

Would it be possible to have several instances of the
cn driver and to force one to use ttya and the other
wscons ?

I'll really appreciate any comments/thoughts you may
have.

Francois

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