[danengel]

Hi,

when I login as '>console', running in text-only mode, often the screen content starts scrolling up and all I can do is to hard-reset my iBook. I'd like to work in text-only mode but that bug or whatever it is prevents me from using it.

Also, is there any way to change the font to Monaco-9pt (as it is in Open Firmware)? That would be great.

-- Daniel

[Angus_D]

"scrolling away"? what do you mean? it just spontaneously starts moving up the screen? sounds like a bug, please report it to apple via http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/bugs.html

as for changing the font, console mode is very basic in Darwin at the moment... I did manage to change the colours though (by hacking the kernel source), that was amusing. i'd say that it's probably out of the realms of joe user, though.

[danengel]

The whole screen starts to move upwards until it disappears. I already reported it to the normal OS X feedback page, do you think I should report it at the Darwin site also? I wonder nobody else encountered this bug.

[petej]

Scroll elevators are something implemented by a window manager, which you've turned off if you move to ">console". The usual solution for this is to use a pager program like "more" or "less"; you pipe the output of a command through the pager like this:

ps aux | more

then more pauses every screenful to let you read it; you press the space bar when you're ready to see the next screenful. "Less" lets you scroll backward when you're viewing a file.

Another typical coping method is to redirect the output of a long command to a file, and then use a pager on the file:

ps aux > somefile
more somefile

There's no bug here; this is how terminals worked for years before GUI interfaces showed up, and Unix is full of tools to help you deal with it.

If you're running Darwin and want something friendlier, you'll need to install an X Window System server (XFree86, for example), and then you can use the xterm program, which allows scrollbars on the windows. If you're running Mac OS X, what are you trying to gain by running in console mode?

There was a note on an Apple Darwin mailing list at one point that the font used for console mode cannot be changed.

[danengel]

Sorry for not expressing myself clear enough. I know 'more' and 'less' quite well, that's not the problem. What I think is a bug is when the screen doesn't stop scrolling, so there's nothing anymore and no CTRL-C or whatever that helps, except a reset. Simply all moves upwards until it's gone which leaves a blank screen.

[petej]

Prior to this happening, are you sure ^C works? Do you need to set the intr character with stty?

One other thing is that information logged to the console goes to, well, then console. When you have the window manager running, there's an app you can run called "Console" (talk about overloading a word!) that displays the log messages. Is it possible that your screen display is being overwritten by console log messages? (If you're running vi, more or less, you can try issuing a ^L to repaint the screen; if it's console messages that are messing you up, this should at least restore the screen to a usable state.)

I guess I haven't tried to spend enough time in console mode to observe this, but then I don't have problems with the window server. What are you hoping to gain by using console mode?

[danengel]

What are you hoping to gain by using console mode?

It's just so cool to have a mac with a command line interface
Besides that I'm interested in how much resources the GUI consumes. In console mode, there are only a few processes running and you've got much more RAM left.

^C works, but it doesn't help escaping when the screen runs away.

Do you need to set the intr character with stty?

What's that??

[petej]

Originally posted by danengel:
<STRONG>What's that??</STRONG>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1"face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial">code:</font><HR><pre><font size=1 face=courier>
[ptower:~] petej% stty -a
speed <font color = blue>9600</font> baud; <font color = blue>43</font> rows; <font color = blue>80</font> columns;
lflags: icanon isig iexten echo echoe -echok echoke -echonl echoctl
-echoprt -altwerase -noflsh -tostop -flusho pendin -nokerninfo
-extproc
iflags: -istrip icrnl -inlcr -igncr ixon -ixoff ixany imaxbel -ignbrk
brkint -inpck -ignpar -parmrk
oflags: opost onlcr -oxtabs
cflags: cread cs8 -parenb -parodd hupcl -clocal -cstopb -crtscts -mdmbuf
cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = &lt;undef&gt;;
eol2 = &lt;undef&gt;; erase = ^?; intr = ^C; kill = ^U; lnext = ^V;
min = <font color = blue>1</font>; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q; status = &lt;undef&gt;;
stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = <font color = blue>0</font>; werase = ^W;
</font>[/code]

The <font face = "courier">-a</font> option tells stty to report all option values. In my output here, you can see that the intr key is ^C -- this means that when I hold down the Control key and press "C", the INTR signal is sent to the foreground process, which will usually terminate it. If you want to make ^C your intr key, and it's set to something else, issue this command:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1"face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial">code:</font><HR><pre><font size=1 face=courier>
stty intr ^C
</font>[/code]

If you can't seem to type the ^C without killing the command line in progress, type a ^V before it.

All that said, it still sounds like your problem may be related to console messages, and since they aren't coming from a foreground process, you can't stop them with ^C.

I think your best bet may be more RAM, if you're concerned about system resources. Processes are cheap in Unix, and you don't have to worry about the few that the Window Server adds. While the Window Server consumes some memory, it gives you a lot of usability. I had pretty good performance at 384MB, but now that I've got 768MB, I have no problems (except with GoLive 5 under Classic, but that's not related to resources). Terminal.app still gives you a CLI on your mac!