[9fans] The cons file and consolefs

[9fans] The cons file and consolefs

[Andy Elvey]

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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


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Re: [9fans] The cons file and consolefs

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

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.

Re: [9fans] The cons file and consolefs

[erik quanstrom]

> 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

just change the permissions on /dev/ptmx back to g+w.  in fact,
since you have a case narrowed down, it might be easy to find
& fix.  ☺

- erik

Re: [9fans] The cons file and consolefs

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Thu, 25 Oct 2012 09:09:39 -0400
erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:

> > 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
> 
> just change the permissions on /dev/ptmx back to g+w.  in fact,
> since you have a case narrowed down, it might be easy to find
> & fix.  ☺
> 
> - erik
> 

... how did i not find this solution? probably because i wasn't familiar with what the perms should be. it's 100% reproducible, anyway, i'll go pester p9p-dev.


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

Re: [9fans] The cons file and consolefs

[erik quanstrom]

>
> ... how did i not find this solution? probably because i wasn't familiar with what the perms should be. it's 100% reproducible, anyway, i'll go pester p9p-dev.

many smart people i know actively avoid knowing the details of ill-conceived
and archic technology.  :-)

- erik