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Kmscon Project Seeks To Replace Linux Virtual Terminal
An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix reports on the progress of kmscon, David Herrmann's virtual console project that aims to supersede the Linux kernel's virtual terminal. kmscon takes advantage of modern Linux features such as kernel mode setting, direct rendering, and udev to provide hardware-accelerated rendering, full internationalization, monitor hot-plugging, and proper multi-seat support. A recent blog post by Herrmann addresses some of his frequently heard questions and criticisms about the kmscon project."
If you read the article (or was it the blog post?), you'll find answers.
First, kmscon has only one dependency - libudev. It can be compiled to use Pango for font rendering, or EGL for hardware-accelerated rendering, but those are optional. X11 is never used.
Second, the rationale for putting this in userspace was mainly for internationalization. In particular, some character tables (for Asian languages, especially) can be rather large. If it was in the kernel, that memory could not be swapped out. In userspace, you can.
Third, this seems aimed at regular console users, not primarily-X-users-that-use-a-terminal. There are plenty of good X11 terminal emulators (and just as many bad ones). This is aimed at people who don't need (or at least, don't want) X, but still want to use all the features of modern hardware. It also claims to interact well with both the kernel VT system, and with X - you can keep an X session on one virtual screen, keep the kernel terminal on another (for those few cases where it is needed, like kernel error messages), and put kmscon on the rest.
I will probably try this out, because I at least used to fit into that group of regular console users. I have on several occasions run out of virtual terminals. I'm not so much of one anymore, but maybe this will get me back into it.