Hi, To be able to switch from X (and svgalib, etc) to the console and back we need support for some ioctls. I wonder if we want to have such ioctls or do we want a special library (libvt or so).
There are several ioctls related for console switching. The most important one is VT_ACTIVATE which is easy to implement. But it is not the only ioctl we need. Another one is VT_SETSTATE. This ioctl is used to set the state for a specific tty. Our problem is that the ttys (/dev/tty1 for example) are not responsible for the state, all these things are under control of the console client. One thing we can do is making nodes for each VT (/dev/cons/[1-6] or whatever is required). These nodes can be used to access the console client (and the VT_* ioctls). The problem with this approach is that the access is not via the responsible tty. So the programs using this should be Hurd aware anyway. A program can reserve a VT and request a notification when switching to or away from that VT. The notification is done with a signal. But I think there is no way in the Hurd to figure out where to send it to. So how can I get the PID of the process calling VT_SETMODE? So I am considering a library that is capable of the same things as the ioctls. Would that be a wise choice or is there any way to overcome the problems I described? My choice would be a library that should be used for console switching, although it will make us incompatible. Thanks, Marco _______________________________________________ Bug-grub mailing list Bug-grub@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-grub
