Re: need terminfo for serial console?

[Yoshinori K. Okuji]

At Sun, 28 Apr 2002 22:25:04 -0700 (PDT),
Dr. Tilmann Bubeck <address@hidden> wrote:
> it will not change the code much. The most obvious change would be, that all
> your hardcoded "escape strings", like "\e%dJ" will be replaced by something
> link "cursordown(X)". This is a new function which will get the escape code
> from the terminfo table. It will therefore work with any terminal, not just
> vt100.

That's not so easy as you suppose.

First, the terminal code must be renewed before adding a bunch of new
code into it, as discussed several weeks ago in this list. The current
code is buggy enough and it is too easy to break. Someone needs to
rewrite many parts of the code, but nobody begins to work on that yet,
I think.

Second, the current implementation of GRUB doesn't allow you to open
multiple files at a time, as I said again and again in this list. So
you cannot read a terminfo file while reading a configuration
file. That's bad definitely, and that is one of the reasons why we
will have to redesign GRUB almost from scratch in the future.

As Mario suggested, it would be a good idea to define escape sequences
in a configuration file, since this circumvents the limitation above,
and this doesn't depend upon external resources.

> Well, the terminal I use is a IBM3161. I choose the name "vt52" because it is
> widely known. However, my idea will cover ALL terminals not just "vt52". My
> IBM3161 is cheap, small, and very good for using at my "home-server", which
> resides in the cellar. Are you using a CRT? Its too big and heavy...

No, I'm using a LCD. It's rather expensive but small and light. I
think there are much cheaper LCDs (US$100 or so), if you don't need a
good performance.

Thanks,
Okuji