Subject: WSCONS experiences under i386 port
To: None <current-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Matthias Scheler <tron@lyssa.owl.de>
List: current-users
Date: 06/15/1998 22:47:20
	Hello,

after Matthias Drochner added WSCONS support for i386 support I decided
to give it a try. Here are my experiences:

Getting the console to work was quiet easy. First copy a current "MAKEDEV"
to "/dev" and use "./MAKEDEV wscons". Then edit "/etc/ttys" and replace
"ttyv" with "ttyw" and set the corresponding terminal types to "sun".

Getting XFree86 to run was more difficult. I start the X11 server via
"xdm" with this entry in "Xservers":

:0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X -bpp 32 -once +kb vt05

With a configuration like this the X11 server needs to open "/dev/ttyv0"
and "/dev/ttyv4" (5th console) to work. I solved that problem by replacing
"ttyv0" with a link to "ttyw0" and "ttyw4" with a link to "ttyw4". If we
are going to keep the "ttywXYZ" names we should the X11 server to use them.

For now there are four problems left:

- <CTRL>+<SPACE> doesn't work on a console tty.

- Console ttys can't display ISO 8859 1 national characters.

- "ispcvt" considers WSCONS to be a PCVT console but the utilities e.g.
  "kcon" fail. I suppose this problem can't be solved to keep compatiblity.

- There is obviously no way to set the number of console ttys, it seems to
  be hard coded to 8.

Anyway: good work so far.

-- 
Matthias Scheler                                http://home.owl.de/~tron/