Moving the Linux Kernel Console To User-Space 311
jones_supa sends this quote from Phoronix:
"David Herrmann has provided an update on his ambitious initiative to kill off the Linux kernel console. Herrmann has long been working on making the Linux kernel CONFIG_VT option unnecessary for providing a Linux console by punting it off to user-space. The Linux kernel VT console hasn't been changed much in the past two decades and Herrmann is hoping to see it replaced with a user-space solution he's been developing that would allow for multi-seat support, a hardware-accelerated console, full internalization, and other features."
why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Unneeded (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets not mess with the TTY's they are STILL NEEDED for when things go wrong...
good thinking HA! (Score:5, Insightful)
making console depend on layers of complexity in user space, yeah that'll all be there when things go south.... the console is there for emergencies, needs to depend on as little as possibile
But pleeeease keep the key-combo (Score:5, Insightful)
Being able to press ctrl-alt-f1 when anyting hangs the X server is why I feel more at home in linux than in windows or OSX.
Rule no 1 (Score:2, Insightful)
If it works, don't fix it
It Works. Fuck It Up! (Score:4, Insightful)
So, it's relatively unchanged for "two decades". No one is complaining about it. It doesn't really seem to require improvement as it does what it needs to.
Yea, let's completely gut the system, move it to user space, introduce a metric shit ton of unexpected and undesirable behavior because... Well, Gnome is changing.
Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess my questions boils down to this: why can't someone who wants a more advanced terminal just open up an X session, and put a few xterms on it? Please leave the very robust kernel console for its failsafe properties.
Re:Unneeded (Score:4, Insightful)
100x This ^^^
Start messing with the console, and you could end up, like Windows, with no basic, self-reliant recovery options.
You must be stupid, stupid, stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
The linux kernel console; a lightweight, lightning-fast TEXT console not depending on X or anything else. Who needs it, eh? Are you kidding me? This is an imbecilic idea. If you must have pointless cruft like this, add it IN ADDITION to what has ALWAYS worked perfectly, is super reliable, and super simple. Hopefully set it up so that any mature user can leave this garbage out of his system.
This is just a continuation of the systemd, Gnome 3 type of insanity.
The way things are going, BSD, here I come. An OS by adults, for adults, not a would-be Windows me-too with stupid people gradually one-by-one breaking everything that has made linux great - up until now.
Re:why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite. This sounds like a solution in search of a problem and users that actually care. On the other hand, it could break things horribly especially for those failsafe situations.
it sounds like yet another example for of change for it's own sake not driven by any actual end user requirements that is actually being done DESPITE end user objections.
It seems like a perfect microsoftism.
What exact problem is this trying to solve? (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA (to save your delicate eyes from the indignity of RTFA):
Let's look at this one item at a time.
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea is to replace a kernel functionality with few features and several crucial limitations
But those few features are crucial.
The need for this arose primarily with the introduction of kernel mode setting etc.
And what happens when KMS fails? What happens when all you have are VGA text modes?
Will the user space console work in every instance where the current console works? If so, great. If we give up any of the reliability we've grown to rely upon, no thanks. I'd rather have a "lame console" I know will be there, than a full featured console I have to troubleshoot.
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
So you two & everyone who's modded these up, thinks that 1) something being moved to a secondary option is the same as "being killed", and 2) that technology shouldn't be used to improve anything.
Please rethink.
Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. Less functionality running in the kernel, the better. The kernel is a highly constrained environment, and it is also very security sensitive. Console processing does not belong there.
This sounds like yet another example of uninformed people assuming that they know anything about the subject matter at hand, and assuming that actual kernel developers do not.
Re:Going that way for a while now (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember a beautiful simple system where everyone recompiled their kernels, it was simple and expected; and the system's components were independent enough to roll with changes like this, where running console-only didn't make you out to be a weirdo and switching versions of X wouldn't break every piece of your system, rather it would just switch your X.
Recently the linux I have met is a nice windows replacement. It acts like windows, I use it like windows, and the whole thing breaks if I try to change anything under the hood like windows.
Perhaps it's time to go back to FreeBSD, where simplicity was always the purpose, I sure hope in my time away from it (10 years now) it hasn't been won over by the dark side like linux was...
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's not fully fledged.... it doesn't provide two of the three features I need in a text console: kernel diagnostic messages prior to the start of user space and kernel diagnostic messages following a crash.
Re:Unneeded (Score:5, Insightful)
All the text before:
Give root password for maintenance:
is very useful to some people.
I'll admit that I do tend to compile out early printk and most error messages, hide the init confirmations as much as possible and generally like a tidy boot sequence.
I like to know that I can put them back in when needed though.
Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a long stretch to imagine that you can start a userspace process long before all of the kernel drivers are initialized. It's basically a big waste of time that the kernel delays starting init to *after* all the drivers are initialized. It's a waste of time. The applications that depend on functionality of certain parts of the kernel should simply wait until those parts become available. That's all there's to it. Also, the drivers can be initialized in parallel. No reason for the network card driver initialization not to run in parallel with waiting for the scsi raid driver to come up. The console doesn't need any of that and can be started up as the first thing, even if it were a userspace driver. Kernel usually starts off an initrd image, that's where the console application would be. I think it'd be wonderful if the kernel went in this direction, not only for console but for all other drivers as well. The applications that need to wait for certain things can get notifications when drivers get ready.
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's wrong with it being in the userspace? At least if it crashes, it doesn't bring the whole kernel down. The process is relaunched by the kernel, and off you go.
Suppose you never make it to user space?
Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. Less functionality running in the kernel, the better. The kernel is a highly constrained environment, and it is also very security sensitive. Console processing does not belong there.
When everything breaks down, it isn't worth much to have a rock solid kernel if you can't interact with it through a console
Re:Going that way for a while now (Score:4, Insightful)
There have been a lot of improvements in Linux, but there has also been a lot of dane brammage shoveled in. Most of it is in userspace, but sadly, not all.
Gnome finally exceeded the maximum height BS can be piled and people are switching in droves. I have to agree that the new startup methods are mostly crap. I see no reason to pile in that much poorly documented crap to save 5 seconds at boot time (especially when we're not supposed to need to boot all that often).
I believe GP is referring to the situation in Fedora (perhaps changed now). For a while, it would break fairly badly if you dared to go back even a single sub-minor number on your kernel.
I am definitely NOT fond of grub2's configuration system. They took a simple and sane config and turned it into a 20 headed hydra full of config files and scripts that write config files. It's a very complex solution to a very simple problem and it needs to die. I have similar feelings about the way /dev is handled now. I can live with devices appearing and disappearing, but wit's with the bazillion little cryptic files.
It really IS becoming more opaque like Windows.
I certainly agree about the modelines. Good riddance to them. DDP is a win!