Re: [9fans] The cons file and consolefs

[Ethan Grammatikidis <eekee57@fastmail.fm>]

On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 10:47:15 +1200
Andy Elvey <andy.elvey@paradise.net.nz> wrote:

> Hi all -
>   I've just been looking at the docs for cons and consolefs. I am just
> **blown away** by how cleanly and elegantly keyboard input is handled in
> Plan 9!  There seems to be *none* of the - um - "less than optimal", to
> put it mildly - approach of Linux, with its termios and friends.
> There doesn't even seem to be the need for "readline",as far as I can tell.
>
> I assume it would be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to
> implement this approach to keyboard-handling on Linux - would I be
> correct in saying that? It's a pity, if that's the case.
>
> Anyway, just a bit of praise there for the Plan 9 devs.....  :)
> - Andy
>

I think you echo all our thoughts there. As to implementing Plan 9's keyboard handling, am I right in assuming you mean for the purpose of writing programs for such a clean interface? If so, you might want to try linking with the plan9port libraries. Alternatively (and probably better) just write for Plan 9 and import your Linux file systems. Drawterm and 9vx provide very easy access to the host's files and u9fs isn't far behind. Almost all the editing and shell operations I do on my Linux box these days are done via drawterm, the only exception being root-owned files.

By the way, if you run p9p acme on Linux as root, don't use win. The pty subsystem crashes or something; you have to reboot before you can open any X term. :D

--
This is obviously some strange usage of the word
"simple" that I was previously unaware of.