AC> Myrdraal writes:
>> On Tue, Jun 23, 1998 at 04:24:53AM -0400, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
>>> Such abnormal keyboard behavior should be associated with the file
>>> descriptor, not the device. Then we wouldn't need the huge collection
>>> of ugly hacks that knowledgeable users use to restore the console.
AC> ...
>> Why go through all that sort of complicated stuff when a
>> simple alt-sysrq-r will do the trick?
AC> 1. It is not user-friendly to _ever_ get into that state.
AC> If you find a way to get out of the state, you have
AC> solved the wrong problem. Users don't want magic escape
AC> tricks for a condition that should never happen.
The proper fix to this, and other problems of programms getting messed
up on the console, is the Secure Attention Key. Which resets a
console to a know state. You have to log in a again but that is
a minor thing. This was originally concieved to help prevent spoof
login programs, so has general applicabilitly.
Also remember that when a program dies abnormally it can just as
easilly leave the video card in a bad state, as well as the tty
device.
Probably what we should do is get the GGI drivers integrated into the
kernel in the FBCons layer, and then we can all worry about optimizing
the video card interface layer, and implementing SAK. Eventually
programs will need to migrate to actualy using the kernel video
drivers but that doesn't need to happen immediately.
Eric
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