: At the very least, I'd like to have a kernel configure option to
: switch off the whole vc business. To me, it does more harm than good.
Harm? Why?
Screen buffers etc are allocated dynamically, so if you don't use
VCs, they cost no space. Yes, there is a little code in the kernel
about VC switching, but you wouldn't notice if that handful of
lines were removed. Just remove /dev/ttyN for N>1, and no VC switching
anymore for anybody but root. Or compile the kernel with
MAX_NR_CONSOLES 1, and also root cannot switch anymore.
[Note that X uses a fresh VC, so no X anymore either.]