svn commit: r264907 - in head/release: amd64 i386

[Nathan Whitehorn]

On 04/30/14 06:36, Ed Maste wrote:
> On 30 April 2014 01:41, Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn at freebsd.org> wrote:
>> So, to make universally bootable install media, we have to switch the
>> default console driver to newcons. This means we need to finish polishing
>> newcons and need to think about what, exactly, the missing pieces are to
>> enable it as the default.
> There's a Newcons wiki page at https://wiki.freebsd.org/Newcons with
> some details, but I believe the main points are:
>
> 1. Documentation.  We currently have no vt(4) man page so one needs to
> be written, and other pages likely need to be updated.  Other
> documentation (like the handbook) need to be investigated.
> 2. Control tools (e.g. kbdmap(1), vidcontrol(1), vidfont(1)) need to
> be updated.  Alexandr posted a patch for vidcontrol with the subject
> "RFT vidcontrol for vt(4)"
> 3. Provide console fonts for vt, equivalent to /usr/share/syscons/fonts.
> 4. Address some performance issues, especially on certain non-x86 and
> low-end hardware, and in virtual machines.
> 5. Address boot console priority.
>

Which of these are blockers before turning it on in GENERIC for wider 
testing? Point #1 is a must, I think. #2 seems potentially destructive: 
do we want to have to make them work with both syscons and vt? #5 we've 
worked around for the time being. #4 would be nice, but maybe wider 
testing helps with it. It's painfully slow on regular x86 hardware as 
well -- my brand-new Lenovo laptop for instance. But I think we could 
switch GENERIC on -CURRENT over only after writing some documentation.
-Nathan