From: rcskb@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Kendall Bennett) Subject: Re: Can you access a virtual console directly? Date: 18 Sep 1992 01:04:51 GMT
eric@tantalus.dell.com (Eric Youngdale) writes:
> Linux has the power and the tools to do whatever you need. If you use
>the tools rather than trying to work around Linux then everything will happily
>co-exist. If you are writing a text mode application, use curses and/or
>termcap. If you want a graphics application, use MGR or X11. This is is what
>they are there for.
Granted. What about color support? Can you do proper color using curses?
Can you change the palette of the console? I gather something like curses
is needed and if can provide all this then great. But otherwise maybe
something should be done to let curses work on systems that are actually
a _proper_ console, not something that is VT100? I don't care whether I
am using curses or doing it myself - the end result is what counts. I
would like to be able to have something that looks like Turbo Visions
under Linux and 386BSD, but without the overhead of terminal emulation.
I mean, how does curses move a block of video memory that is inside a
window around? Sure it can scroll the screen one line at a time _very_
fast, but scrolling windows and scrolling left/right/backwards must
be a little more complicated and incur some sort of overhead.
Given that most people running Linux and 386BSD wont be logging in via
dumb or VT100 terminals, maybe support for more elaborate text devices
needs to be included in curses? Of course you still want to make it
work the old curses :-)
On the note of graphics - I would use X11 if I need to have a nice, but
not so snappy interface to my programs. What about realtime 3D under
X11? Forget it. Even if the system supports Pex, you wont get any sort
of support for realtime graphics on an ET4000 card.
If on the other hand I can take of the entire video display and program
the card directly, you certainly can. Page flipped animation is suddenly
possible, and fast high performance graphics routines can be written in
assembler (this is exactly what my MSDOS graphics library does).
X11 and curses have their place, but they are not the be all and end all
or everything...
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| Kendall Bennett, | Internet: |
| Advanced Computer Graphics Centre, | kjb@godzilla.cgl.citri.edu.au |
| Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, | rcskb@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au |
| Victoria, AUSTRALIA. | |
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