Subject: Re: wscons and multiple wsdisplays
To: port-sparc64@NetBSD.org, <tech-kern@NetBSD.org>
From: Erik E. Fair <fair@netbsd.org>
List: port-sparc64
Date: 05/18/2005 12:24:38
Once upon a time, computers were attached to "terminals" which had
both keyboard and display on one I/O device: the serial port, so it
was easy to associate input with the corresponding output (and vice
versa).
Now, we have keyboards, mice, and frame buffers (or GPUs with frame
buffers) as separate devices with no obvious association.
The degenerate case (single user) is easy: one output (even if there
are multiple monitors, the user can see them all, right?), and all
input gets muxed together so that you don't care where it came from
(hence wsmux(4)).
Kerrnel configuration gets much more interesting if you want multiple
users of a single computer (N frame buffers, N keyboards, N mice, for
N > 1), you have to figure out a way to associate the inputs devices
with the output devices.
It was my understanding of the discussions when wscons(4) was
designed that it was supposed to be capable of supporting the N > 1
case, even in the presence of hot plug systems like USB. Is there an
example kernel config(8) that does this?
curious,
Erik <fair@netbsd.org>