console in 11.0-ALPHA4

[Ernie Luzar]

Trond Endrestøl wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Jun 2016 11:36-0400, Ernie Luzar wrote:
> 
>> I have installed 11.0-ALPHA4-i386-20160617-r301975.
>>
>> The console looks very different from all previous releases.
>> I find it to be harder to read. This manifests it self with the boot log
>> messages and the normal behavior of the virtual consoles.
>>
>> But the real problem is in the notable hesitation when switching between
>> virtual consoles.
>>
>> From the boot log (ie: dmesg) I see this
>> VT(vga): resolution 640x480
>>
>> This must be what is making the console display so different from
>> previous releases. Can VT be configured to default to present the same
>> console behavior as previous releases before this version of 11.0 gets
>> published as RELEASE?
> 
> If you want textmode like in the old days, add this line to 
> /boot/loader.conf:
> 
> hw.vga.textmode="1"
> 
> You can also interrupt the final boot loader, and type:
> 
> set hw.vga.textmode="1"
> 
> Then type:
> 
> menu
> 
> or:
> 
> boot
> 
>> About the "hesitation when switching between virtual consoles" I am
>> thinking that this reduced performance may be caused by WITNESS being
>> enabled in the ALPHA series of releases. Can anyone verify that this
>> hesitation will not exist in the published RELEASE?
> 
> The "hesitation" is sometimes hardware dependent. A GPU with a KMS 
> driver makes it better. It's even worse in some virtualization 
> environments, e.g. Microsoft Hyper-V.
> 
>> In the boot log I get this message 16 times.
>> "vicontrol: setting cursor type: Inappropriate ioctl for device"
>> They don't seem to cause any problems that I have stumbled across.
>> Is anyone else getting these "NOTICE" type messages?
> 
> If you decide to continue with the vt console, you should consider the 
> following:
> 
> With the new VT console in graphics mode, you don't need to load any 
> fonts. Disable or remove any font lines from /etc/rc.conf.
> 
> I haven't tried the vt console in text mode lately, so maybe you need 
> the fonts in that case.
> 
> Look for the appropriate keymap file in /usr/share/vt/keymaps/ and 
> update the keymap line in /etc/rc.conf.
> 
> Here's the Norwegian keyboard layout as an example:
> 
> keymap="norwegian.iso" # Old Norwegian keymap for the sc console
> 
> keymap="no"            # New Norwegian keymap for the vt console
> 

On my 10.3-p4 system I added these 2 lines to loader.conf
kern.vty=vt
hw.vga.textmode=1

This change caused my 10.3 system to use "vt" and returned the console 
behavior look and feel to be just like the (sc(4) console. The 
"hesitation when switching between virtual consoles" also no longer 
happens.

I think its a mistake to default the vt console driver to graph mode in 
11.0. It should default to hw.vga.textmode=1 mode to be consistent with 
previous RELEASE versions of FreeBSD.

I found the cause of this boot time message
"vicontrol: setting cursor type: Inappropriate ioctl for device"

In my rc.conf I had this statement
vidcontrol -c blink -h 250
 From testing it seems that vt does not handle the "blink" option for 
causing the cursor to blink. Is there a vt option to enable cursor  blinking


And while we are on fallout from vt becoming the default console driver 
in 11.0, what about the loader.conf options for "splash" screens and the 
rc.conf option screen saver "saver= " and the "blanktime= " option. 
Have these been reviewed?

Now here is the real show stopper. My rc.conf has
moused_flags="-m 2=3" to enable mouse copy and past.
This function on longer works under vt mode.