freebsd-questions Digest, Vol 700, Issue 6

[J.B.]

On 11/05/2017 05:59 PM, Polytropon wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Nov 2017 17:16:38 -0800, J.B. wrote:
>>> Message: 4 Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2017 10:44:04 -0700 From: "J.B."
>>> <non.euc.geo.1854 at gmail.com> To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>>> Subject: VT_ALT_TO_ESC_HACK for sc (syscons) Message-ID:
>>> <184bbd63-e635-1d52-19a6-3e9c1a414e40 at gmail.com> Content-Type:
>>> text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE is using
>>> vt as the default console driver, and it contains a hack which maps an
>>> ESC sequence to the Alt key on your keyboard. FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE
>>> uses sc as the default driver, and the Alt keys don't register a
>>> keystroke for most cases. On vt, Alt-b, Alt-f, Alt-Backspace, etc.,
>>> behave as they do when logged in over SSH using a bash shell (with its
>>> default emacs bindings): move the cursor backwards one word, forwards
>>> one word, delete word to the right of the cursor, etc. How can that
>>> effect be replicated on sc? I tried a new keymap using kbdcontrol, but
>>> there's no way to map key combinations onto the alt-b, alt-f, alt-bs,
>>> etc., sequences -- the mapfile only allows for single keystrokes. I
>>> know I can set vt as the console driver on 10.3-RELEASE, but the font
>>> in vt is so ugly I want to gouge other peoples' eyes out to save them
>>> from the horrors of seeing it. Adjusting the screen resolution only
>>> helped a tiny bit -- not enough to save peoples' eyes from my angry
>>> fingers. Tried the sample fonts inside /usr/share/vt/fonts/ already.
>> Nobody knows how to implement that hack or replicate its effect on sc?
> As far as I know, sc does not support this kind of capturing key
> events. A notable exception is Alt+PF1, Alt+PF2 and so on for
> switching the virtual terminals which is "handled interally" (by
> the console driver itself) and won't be available to text mode
> programs.
>
> Maybe /usr/src/sys/dev/syscons/syscons.c reveals the magic, which
> probably involves ioctl()...
>
>
>
>> Then what about getting vt's display to look like sc?
> Not possible, as it seems. This has been discussed recently. There
> are too many "moving parts" within vt and in the surrounding tools.
> Essentially, text mode is dead.
>
I'm sad to hear that, P. -- text mode is my favorite mode :(

Thanks for the info.