Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by skissane 2 days ago
> I'm pretty sure all the references to X11 systems, aren't supported by the VT, that ain't X.

This isn't true. The Linux VT console supports both X10 and X11 mouse reporting–except the Linux kernel source code calls X11 mouse reporting "VT200" instead, but it is the same thing. It relies on a user space component (traditionally the gpm daemon) to talk to the mouse driver to get the actual mouse position, and then feed that into the VT device using the TIOCLINUX ioctl (subcode TIOCL_SETSEL, mode TIOCL_SELMOUSEREPORT)

> And as I _can_ see a DECSET section, the manpage is referencing it.

Yes, it describes DECSET. But it doesn't describe many of the DECSET codes, including 1049 and 2004 which the Linux VT console supports – see https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/tty/vt... – and the many more which xterm supports – https://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html – other terminal emulators frequently implement many (but not necessarily all) of the DECSET codes xterm does.

> And as there's whole sections about sequences _not_ implemented by the Linux console, it does not only contain what the Linux VT console support. Which is the opposite of your first statement.

It briefly mentions a few features which xterm provide that Linux VT console doesn't. It makes no attempt to provide an exhaustive summary of all the features xterm has which are lacking in the Linux VT console, since that's the job of the xterm documentation

1 comments

Okay. I described a manpage as the place you should go first, because it has most things in the one place.

You have said that is unacceptable, because it doesn't show absolutely everything ever made. And listed places, which don't show absolutely everything ever made.

Feel like actually offering a source you would feel meets the need?

My point is-the purpose of console_codes is to document what control codes are supported by the Linux VT console - it was never intended as a general purpose reference to control codes in general.

Yes, it does briefly mention a few codes it doesn’t support-but that’s in the spirit of man pages having a “limitations” section (“here’s an incomplete list of commonly requested functionality we haven’t implemented”)-it is not intended as primary documentation for control codes implemented by other software.