Re: Why is TERM=vt100 on the console?

[uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost (Valery Ushakov)]

maya%netbsd.org@localhost wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 11:08:29AM +0000, Valery Ushakov wrote:
>> maya%netbsd.org@localhost wrote:
>> 
>> > Every time we have this discussion someone ends up saying that yes,
>> > everything being terrible and not supporting anything modern is a
>> > great default. they like it that way.
>> 
>> /etc/ttys uses wsvt25 on all ttyE* for a long long time.  It only uses
>> vt100 for console, which may be a serial console, so vt100 is a safe
>> default there.  If you know you don't use serial console you can edit
>> 1 (one) line in ttys.  Do you really think this is "terrible"?
> 
> etc.sparc64/ttys:console        "/usr/libexec/getty suncons"    wsvt25 on secure
> 
> Why is sparc{,64} exempt from having shitty defaults? because people
> who use it don't have to ask netbsd-users if they happen to use
> sufficiently shitty hardware to justify shitty defaults?

This is funny in a way, b/c on sparc it's very easy to switch between
serial console and wscons and I did it all the time when I still
hacked on sparc regularly.  When I had free monitor/keyboard I'd use
them, when that monitor/keyboard were hooked up to something else (or
when copy-pasting text to/from console was convenient, e.g. when
digging through OFW), I'd use serial.

vt100 is a *perfect* default for this (especially on sparc, that's why
it's funny) b/c terminal emulators you'd use to access serial are
predominantly vt-compatible.  It also works with wscons b/c wscons use
vt-compatible emulattion by default too.  Yes, TERM=vt100 will not
descibe everything that wscons can do (like colors), but it will work.
This is what defaults are for.  They are meant to work in most cases.
If i really needed colors on wscons, they were just a single
"TERM=wsvt25" command away.

Anyway, as I said, if you know you will always/mostly use wscons, just
go and change the value in ttys.  This is what that file is for.  In
the dark times when real CRT terminals were a thing that was what you
did when you hooked up a terminal to the system, you'd go and edit
ttys.  B/c you might have vt220 connected and then you have to move it
elsewhere, but then you hook up a Wyse terminal to that port, etc,
etc.

Yes, I get it, these days most people don't quite grasp why TERM is
even there.  Yes, on x86 where serial consoles are not normally used
on consumer machines there's an argument to be made for wsvt25 to be
the default for console (b/c people who actually use serial console on
x86 have enough clue to edit ttys to reflect the configuration of
their system).  But I'd say it's not the best strategy on your part to
open this discussion with an argument that has "shit" in every
sentence and with the technical side of the argument being,
effectively, "I can't edit one line in one file once" ("because I have
paws" as cat memes popular here often say).

-uwe