[9fans] The cons file and consolefs

[Andy Elvey]

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

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 10:47:15 +1200

Post by Andy Elvey
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 a re 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

[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

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Thu, 25 Oct 2012 09:09:39 -0400

Post by 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

... 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.

[erik quanstrom]

Post by Ethan Grammatikidis
... 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