FreeBSD Man Pages

syscons(4)

NAME

     syscons, sc -- the console driver

SYNOPSIS

     options MAXCONS=N
     options SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE
     options SC_CUT_SEPCHARS=_characters_
     options SC_CUT_SPACES2TABS
     options SC_DISABLE_KDBKEY
     options SC_DISABLE_REBOOT
     options SC_HISTORY_SIZE=N
     options SC_MOUSE_CHAR=C
     options SC_NO_CUTPASTE
     options SC_NO_FONT_LOADING
     options SC_NO_HISTORY
     options SC_NO_PALETTE_LOADING
     options SC_NO_SUSPEND_VTYSWITCH
     options SC_NO_SYSMOUSE
     options SC_PIXEL_MODE
     options SC_TWOBUTTON_MOUSE
     options SC_NORM_ATTR=_attribute_
     options SC_NORM_REV_ATTR=_attribute_
     options SC_KERNEL_CONS_ATTR=_attribute_
     options SC_KERNEL_CONS_REV_ATTR=_attribute_
     options SC_DFLT_FONT
     makeoptions SC_DFLT_FONT=_font_name_
     device sc

     In /boot/device.hints:
     hint.sc.0.at="isa"

DESCRIPTION

     The syscons driver provides multiple virtual terminals.  It resembles the
     SCO color console driver.

     The syscons driver is implemented on top of the keyboard driver
     (atkbd(4)) and the video card driver (vga(4)) and so requires both of
     them to be configured in the system.

     There can be only one syscons device defined in the system.

   Virtual Terminals
     The syscons driver provides multiple virtual terminals which appear as if
     they were separate terminals.  One virtual terminal is considered current
     and exclusively occupies the screen and the keyboard; the other virtual
     terminals are placed in the background.

     In order to use virtual terminals, they must be individually marked
     ``on'' in /etc/ttys so that getty(8) will recognize them to be active and
     run login(1) to let the user log in to the system.  By default, only the
     first eight virtual terminals are activated in /etc/ttys.

     You press the Alt key and a switch key to switch between virtual termi-
     nals.  The following table summarizes the correspondence between the
     switch key and the virtual terminal.

	   Alt-F1   ttyv0      Alt-F7	ttyv6	   Shift-Alt-F1   ttyv10

     The default number of available virtual terminals is 16.  This can be
     changed with the kernel configuration option MAXCONS (see below).

     Note that the X server usually requires a virtual terminal for display
     purposes, so at least one terminal must be left unused by getty(8) so
     that it can be used by the X server.

   Key Definitions and Function Key Strings
     The syscons driver, in conjunction with the keyboard driver, allows the
     user to change key definitions and function key strings.  The
     kbdcontrol(1) command will load a key definition file (known as
     ``keymap'' file), dump the current keymap, and assign a string to a func-
     tion key.	See keyboard(4) and kbdmap(5) for the keymap file.

     You may want to set the keymap variable in /etc/rc.conf.local to the
     desired keymap file so that it will be automatically loaded when the sys-
     tem starts up.

   Software Font
     For most modern video cards, e.g., VGA, the syscons driver and the video
     card driver allow the user to change the font used on the screen.	The
     vidcontrol(1) command can be used to load a font file from
     /usr/share/syscons/fonts.

     The font comes in various sizes: 8x8, 8x14 and 8x16.  The 8x16 font is
     typically used for the VGA card in the 80-column-by-25-line mode.	Other
     video modes may require different font sizes.  It is better to always
     load all three sizes of the same font.

     You may set font8x8, font8x14 and font8x16 variables in /etc/rc.conf to
     the desired font files so that they will be automatically loaded when the
     system starts up.

     Optionally you can specify a particular font file as the default.	See
     the SC_DFLT_FONT option below.

   Screen Map
     If your video card does not support software fonts, you may still be able
     to achieve a similar effect by re-mapping the font built into your video
     card.  Use vidcontrol(1) to load a screen map file which defines the map-
     ping between character codes.

   Mouse Support and Copy-and-Paste
     You can use your mouse to copy text on the screen and paste it as if it
     was typed by hand.  You must be running the mouse daemon moused(8) and
     enable the mouse cursor in the virtual terminal via vidcontrol(1).

     Pressing mouse button 1 (usually the left button) will start selection.
     Releasing button 1 will end the selection process.  The selected text
     will be marked by inverting foreground and background colors.  You can
     press button 3 (usually the right button) to extend the selected region.
     The selected text is placed in the copy buffer and can be pasted at the
     cursor position by pressing button 2 (usually the middle button) as many
     times as you like.

     If your mouse has only two buttons, you may want to use the
     SC_TWOBUTTON_MOUSE option below to make the right button to paste the
     keyboards) and the terminal is in the ``scrollback'' mode.  It is indi-
     cated by the Scroll Lock LED.  Use the arrow keys, the Page Up/Down keys
     and the Home/End keys to scroll buffered terminal output.	Press the
     ``slock'' key again to get back to the normal terminal mode.

     The size of the scrollback buffer can be set by the SC_HISTORY_SIZE
     option described below.

   Screen Saver
     The syscons driver can be made to put up the screen saver if the current
     virtual terminal is idle, that is, the user is not typing on the keyboard
     nor moving the mouse.  See splash(4) and vidcontrol(1) for more details.

DRIVER CONFIGURATION

   Kernel Configuration Options
     The following kernel configuration options control the syscons driver.

     MAXCONS=N
	    This option sets the number of virtual terminals to N.  The
	    default value is 16.

     SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE
	    This option selects the alternative way of displaying the mouse
	    cursor in the virtual terminal.  It may be expensive for some
	    video cards to draw the arrow-shaped cursor, and you may want to
	    try this option.  However, the appearance of the alternative mouse
	    cursor may not be very appealing.  Note that if you use the
	    SC_NO_FONT_LOADING option then you must also use this option if
	    you wish to be able to use the mouse.

     SC_CUT_SEPCHARS=_characters_
	    This options specifies characters that will be looked for when the
	    driver searches for words boundaries when doing cut operation.  By
	    default, its value is "\x20" -- a space character.

     SC_CUT_SPACES2TABS
	    This options instructs the driver to convert leading spaces into
	    tabs when copying data into cut buffer.  This might be useful to
	    preserve indentation when copying tab-indented text.

     SC_DISABLE_KDBKEY
	    This option disables the ``debug'' key combination (by default, it
	    is Alt-Esc, or Ctl-PrintScreen).  It will prevent users from
	    entering the kernel debugger (KDB) by pressing the key combina-
	    tion.  KDB will still be invoked when the kernel panics or hits a
	    break point if it is included in the kernel.

     SC_DISABLE_REBOOT
	    This option disables the ``reboot'' key (by default, it is
	    Ctl-Alt-Del), so that the casual user may not accidentally reboot
	    the system.

     SC_HISTORY_SIZE=N
	    Sets the size of back scroll buffer to N lines.  The default value
	    is 100.

     SC_MOUSE_CHAR=C
	    Unless the SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE option above is specified, the
	    on some laptop computers, but less so on most other systems, and
	    it adds substantial amount of code to syscons.  If this option is
	    NOT defined, you can reduce the kernel size a lot.	See the
	    VESA800X600 flag below.

     SC_TWOBUTTON_MOUSE
	    If you have a two button mouse, you may want to add this option to
	    use the right button of the mouse to paste text.  See Mouse
	    Support and Copy-and-Paste above.

     SC_NORM_ATTR=_attribute_

     SC_NORM_REV_ATTR=_attribute_

     SC_KERNEL_CONS_ATTR=_attribute_

     SC_KERNEL_CONS_REV_ATTR=_attribute_
	    These options will set the default colors.	Available colors are
	    defined in <machine/pc/display.h>.	See EXAMPLES below.

     SC_DFLT_FONT
	    This option will specify the default font.	Available fonts are:
	    iso, iso2, koi8-r, koi8-u, cp437, cp850, cp865, cp866 and cp866u.
	    16-line, 14-line and 8-line font data will be compiled in.	With-
	    out this option, the syscons driver will use whatever font is
	    already loaded in the video card, unless you explicitly load a
	    software font at startup.  See EXAMPLES below.

     SC_NO_SUSPEND_VTYSWITCH
	    This option, which is also available as loader(8) tunable and
	    sysctl(8) variable (hw.syscons.sc_no_suspend_vtswitch), disables
	    switching between virtual terminals (graphics <-> text) during
	    suspend/resume (ACPI and APM).  Use this option if your system is
	    freezing when you are running X and trying to suspend.

     The following options will remove some features from the syscons driver
     and save kernel memory.

     SC_NO_CUTPASTE
	    This option disables ``copy and paste'' operation in virtual ter-
	    minals.

     SC_NO_FONT_LOADING
	    The syscons driver can load software fonts on some video cards.
	    This option removes this feature.  Note that if you still wish to
	    use the mouse with this option then you must also use the
	    SC_ALT_MOUSE_IMAGE option.

     SC_NO_HISTORY
	    This option disables back-scrolling in virtual terminals.

     SC_NO_SYSMOUSE
	    This option removes mouse support in the syscons driver.  The
	    mouse daemon moused(8) will fail if this option is defined.  This
	    option implies the SC_NO_CUTPASTE option too.

   Driver Flags
     The following driver flags can be used to control the syscons driver.
	    the SC_PIXEL_MODE option explained above.

     0x0100 (AUTODETECT_KBD)
	    This option instructs the syscons driver to periodically scan for
	    a keyboard device if it is not currently attached to one.  Other-
	    wise, the driver only probes for a keyboard once during bootup.

FILES

     /dev/console
     /dev/consolectl
     /dev/ttyv? 		     virtual terminals
     /etc/ttys			     terminal initialization information
     /usr/share/syscons/fonts/*      font files
     /usr/share/syscons/keymaps/*    key map files
     /usr/share/syscons/scrmaps/*    screen map files

EXAMPLES

     As the syscons driver requires the keyboard driver and the video card
     driver, the kernel configuration file should contain the following lines.

	   device atkbdc
	   device atkbd
	   device vga
	   device sc

	   device splash
     You also need the following lines in /boot/device.hints for these driv-
     ers.

	   hint.atkbdc.0.at="isa"
	   hint.atkbdc.0.port="0x060"
	   hint.atkbd.0.at="atkbdc"
	   hint.atkbd.0.irq="1"
	   hint.vga.0.at="isa"
	   hint.sc.0.at="isa"

     If you do not intend to load the splash image or use the screen saver,
     the last line is not necessary, and can be omitted.

     Note that the keyboard controller driver atkbdc is required by the key-
     board driver atkbd.

     The following lines will set the default colors.  The normal text will be
     green on black background.  The reversed text will be yellow on green
     background.  Note that you cannot put any white space inside the quoted
     string, because of the current implementation of config(8).

	   options SC_NORM_ATTR=(FG_GREEN|BG_BLACK)
	   options SC_NORM_REV_ATTR=(FG_YELLOW|BG_GREEN)

     The following lines will set the default colors of the kernel message.
     The kernel message will be printed bright red on black background.  The
     reversed message will be black on red background.

	   options SC_KERNEL_CONS_ATTR=(FG_LIGHTRED|BG_BLACK)
	   options SC_KERNEL_CONS_REV_ATTR=(FG_BLACK|BG_RED)

     The following example adds the font files cp850-8x16.fnt, cp850-8x14.font
     ited by the {MAX_INPUT}, a system limit on the number of bytes that may
     be stored in the terminal input queue - usually 1024 bytes (see
     termios(4)).

BUGS

     This manual page is incomplete and urgently needs revision.

SEE ALSO

     kbdcontrol(1), login(1), vidcontrol(1), atkbd(4), atkbdc(4), keyboard(4),
     screen(4), splash(4), ukbd(4), vga(4), kbdmap(5), rc.conf(5), ttys(5),
     config(8), getty(8), kldload(8), moused(8)

HISTORY

     The syscons driver first appeared in FreeBSD 1.0.

AUTHORS

     The syscons driver was written by Soren Schmidt <sos@FreeBSD.org>.  This
     manual page was written by Kazutaka Yokota <yokota@FreeBSD.org>.

FreeBSD 5.4			 June 30, 1999			   FreeBSD 5.4

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