Some time ago I started working on a library called libteken, which is
terminal emulator. It does not buffer any screen contents, but only
keeps terminal state, such as cursor position, attributes, etc. It
should implement all escape sequences that are implemented by the
cons25 terminal emulator, but also a fair amount of sequences that are
present in VT100 and xterm.
A lot of random notes, which could be of interest to users/developers:
- Even though I'm leaving the terminal type set to `cons25', users can
do experiments with placing `xterm-color' in /etc/ttys. Because we
only implement a subset of features of xterm, this may cause
artifacts. We should consider extending libteken, because in my
opinion xterm is the way to go. Some missing features:
- Keypad application mode (DECKPAM)
- Character sets (SCS)
- libteken is filled with a fair amount of assertions, but unfortunately
we cannot go into the debugger anymore if we fail them. I've done
development of this library almost entirely in userspace. In
sys/dev/syscons/teken there are two applications that can be helpful
when debugging the code:
- teken_demo: a terminal emulator that can be started from a regular
xterm that emulates a terminal using libteken. This application can
be very useful to debug any rendering issues.
- teken_stress: a stress testing application that emulates random
terminal output. libteken has literally survived multiple terabytes
of random input.
- libteken also includes support for UTF-8, but unfortunately our input
layer and font renderer don't support this. If users want to
experiment with UTF-8 support, they can enable `TEKEN_UTF8' in
teken.h. If you recompile your kernel or the teken_demo application,
you can hold some nice experiments.
- I've left PC98 the way it is right now. The PC98 platform has a custom
syscons renderer, which supports some form of localised input. Maybe
we should port PC98 to libteken by the time syscons supports UTF-8?
- I've removed the `dumb' terminal emulator. It has been broken for
years. It hasn't survived the `struct proc' -> `struct thread'
conversion.
- To prevent confusion among people that want to hack on libteken:
unlike syscons, the state machines that parse the escape sequences are
machine generated. This means that if you want to add new escape
sequences, you have to add an entry to the `sequences' file. This will
cause new entries to be added to `teken_state.h'.
- Any rendering artifacts that didn't occur prior to this commit are by
accident. They should be reported to me, so I can fix them.
Discussed on: current@, hackers@
Discussed with: philip (at 25C3)
Sgtty is a programming interface that has been replaced by termios over
the years. In June we already removed <sgtty.h>, which exposes the
ioctl()'s that are implemented by this interface. The importance of this
flag is overrated right now.
module; the ath module now brings in the hal support. Kernel
config files are almost backwards compatible; supplying
device ath_hal
gives you the same chip support that the binary hal did but you
must also include
options AH_SUPPORT_AR5416
to enable the extended format descriptors used by 11n parts.
It is now possible to control the chip support included in a
build by specifying exactly which chips are to be supported
in the config file; consult ath_hal(4) for information.
certain ATA-6 drives including CF cards.
The IDE geometry of the PC98 is calculated from the drive capacity.
In addition to the algorithm in NEC BIOS, a variety of algorithms are
provided by 3'rd party boards and BIOS hacks. This change has
implemented the three algorithms: IDE BIOS compatible mode, SCSI BIOS
compatible mode and same way as the previous version. The tunable
machdep.ad_geom_method selects the algorithm.
I have been using this change for a year with CF cards.
Reminded by: nyan
After I removed all the unit2minor()/minor2unit() calls from the kernel
yesterday, I realised calling minor() everywhere is quite confusing.
Character devices now only have the ability to store a unit number, not
a minor number. Remove the confusion by using dev2unit() everywhere.
This commit could also be considered as a bug fix. A lot of drivers call
minor(), while they should actually be calling dev2unit(). In -CURRENT
this isn't a problem, but it turns out we never had any problem reports
related to that issue in the past. I suspect not many people connect
more than 256 pieces of the same hardware.
Reviewed by: kib
The last half year I've been working on a replacement TTY layer for the
FreeBSD kernel. The new TTY layer was designed to improve the following:
- Improved driver model:
The old TTY layer has a driver model that is not abstract enough to
make it friendly to use. A good example is the output path, where the
device drivers directly access the output buffers. This means that an
in-kernel PPP implementation must always convert network buffers into
TTY buffers.
If a PPP implementation would be built on top of the new TTY layer
(still needs a hooks layer, though), it would allow the PPP
implementation to directly hand the data to the TTY driver.
- Improved hotplugging:
With the old TTY layer, it isn't entirely safe to destroy TTY's from
the system. This implementation has a two-step destructing design,
where the driver first abandons the TTY. After all threads have left
the TTY, the TTY layer calls a routine in the driver, which can be
used to free resources (unit numbers, etc).
The pts(4) driver also implements this feature, which means
posix_openpt() will now return PTY's that are created on the fly.
- Improved performance:
One of the major improvements is the per-TTY mutex, which is expected
to improve scalability when compared to the old Giant locking.
Another change is the unbuffered copying to userspace, which is both
used on TTY device nodes and PTY masters.
Upgrading should be quite straightforward. Unlike previous versions,
existing kernel configuration files do not need to be changed, except
when they reference device drivers that are listed in UPDATING.
Obtained from: //depot/projects/mpsafetty/...
Approved by: philip (ex-mentor)
Discussed: on the lists, at BSDCan, at the DevSummit
Sponsored by: Snow B.V., the Netherlands
dcons(4) fixed by: kan
As clearly mentioned on the mailing lists, there is a list of drivers
that have not been ported to the MPSAFE TTY layer yet. Remove them from
the kernel configuration files. This means people can now still use
these drivers if they explicitly put them in their kernel configuration
file, which is good.
People should keep in mind that after August 10, these drivers will not
work anymore. Even though owners of the hardware are capable of getting
these drivers working again, I will see if I can at least get them to a
compilable state (if time permits).
current@ and stable@ for the locking patches. The driver can always be
revived if someone tests it.
This driver also sleeps in its if_init routine, so it likely doesn't really
work at all anyway in modern releases.
parts relied on the now removed NET_NEEDS_GIANT.
Most of I4B has been disconnected from the build
since July 2007 in HEAD/RELENG_7.
This is what was removed:
- configuration in /etc/isdn
- examples
- man pages
- kernel configuration
- sys/i4b (drivers, layers, include files)
- user space tools
- i4b support from ppp
- further documentation
Discussed with: rwatson, re
ALT_BREAK_TO_DEBUGGER. In addition to "Enter ~ ctrl-B" (to enter the
debugger), there is now "Enter ~ ctrl-P" (force panic) and
"Enter ~ ctrl-R" (request clean reboot, ala ctrl-alt-del on syscons).
We've used variations of this at work. The force panic sequence is
best used with KDB_UNATTENDED for when you just want it to dump and
get on with it.
The reboot request is a safer way of getting into single user than
a power cycle. eg: you've hosed the ability to log in (pam, rtld, etc).
It gives init the reboot signal, which causes an orderly reboot.
I've taken my best guess at what the !x86 and non-sio code changes
should be.
This also makes sio release its spinlock before calling KDB/DDB.
from idle over the next tick.
- Add a new MD routine, cpu_wake_idle() to wakeup idle threads who are
suspended in cpu specific states. This function can fail and cause the
scheduler to fall back to another mechanism (ipi).
- Implement support for mwait in cpu_idle() on i386/amd64 machines that
support it. mwait is a higher performance way to synchronize cpus
as compared to hlt & ipis.
- Allow selecting the idle routine by name via sysctl machdep.idle. This
replaces machdep.cpu_idle_hlt. Only idle routines supported by the
current machine are permitted.
Sponsored by: Nokia
for better structure.
Much of this is related to <sys/clock.h>, which should really have
been called <sys/calendar.h>, but unless and until we need the name,
the repocopy can wait.
In general the kernel does not know about minutes, hours, days,
timezones, daylight savings time, leap-years and such. All that
is theoretically a matter for userland only.
Parts of kernel code does however care: badly designed filesystems
store timestamps in local time and RTC chips almost universally
track time in a YY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS format, and sometimes in local
timezone instead of UTC. For this we have <sys/clock.h>
<sys/time.h> on the other hand, deals with time_t, timeval, timespec
and so on. These know only seconds and fractions thereof.
Move inittodr() and resettodr() prototypes to <sys/time.h>.
Retain the names as it is one of the few surviving PDP/VAX references.
Move startrtclock() to <machine/clock.h> on relevant platforms, it
is a MD call between machdep.c/clock.c. Remove references to it
elsewhere.
Remove a lot of unnecessary <sys/clock.h> includes.
Move the machdep.disable_rtc_set sysctl to subr_rtc.c where it belongs.
XXX: should be kern.disable_rtc_set really, it's not MD.
Note this includes changes to all drivers and moves some device firmware
loading to use firmware(9) and a separate module (e.g. ral). Also there
no longer are separate wlan_scan* modules; this functionality is now
bundled into the wlan module.
Supported by: Hobnob and Marvell
Reviewed by: many
Obtained from: Atheros (some bits)
to detect (or load) kernel NLM support in rpc.lockd. Remove the '-k'
option to rpc.lockd and make kernel NLM the default. A user can still
force the use of the old user NLM by building a kernel without NFSLOCKD
and/or removing the nfslockd.ko module.
frequency generation and what frequency the generated was anyones
guess.
In general the 32.768kHz RTC clock x-tal was the best, because that
was a regular wrist-watch Xtal, whereas the X-tal generating the
ISA bus frequency was much lower quality, often costing as much as
several cents a piece, so it made good sense to check the ISA bus
frequency against the RTC clock.
The other relevant property of those machines, is that they
typically had no more than 16MB RAM.
These days, CPU chips croak if their clocks are not tightly within
specs and all necessary frequencies are derived from the master
crystal by means if PLL's.
Considering that it takes on average 1.5 second to calibrate the
frequency of the i8254 counter, that more likely than not, we will
not actually use the result of the calibration, and as the final
clincher, we seldom use the i8254 for anything besides BEL in
syscons anyway, it has become time to drop the calibration code.
If you need to tell the system what frequency your i8254 runs,
you can do so from the loader using hw.i8254.freq or using the
sysctl kern.timecounter.tc.i8254.frequency.
The timer_spkr_*() functions take care of the enabling/disabling
of the speaker.
Test on the existence of timer_spkr_*() functions, rather than
architectures.
these days, so de-generalize the acquire_timer/release_timer api
to just deal with speakers.
The new (optional) MD functions are:
timer_spkr_acquire()
timer_spkr_release()
and
timer_spkr_setfreq()
the last of which configures the timer to generate a tone of a given
frequency, in Hz instead of 1/1193182th of seconds.
Drop entirely timer2 on pc98, it is not used anywhere at all.
Move sysbeep() to kern/tty_cons.c and use the timer_spkr*() if
they exist, and do nothing otherwise.
Remove prototypes and empty acquire-/release-timer() and sysbeep()
functions from the non-beeping archs.
This eliminate the need for the speaker driver to know about
i8254frequency at all. In theory this makes the speaker driver MI,
contingent on the timer_spkr_*() functions existing but the driver
does not know this yet and still attaches to the ISA bus.
Syscons is more tricky, in one function, sc_tone(), it knows the hz
and things are just fine.
In the other function, sc_bell() it seems to get the period from
the KDMKTONE ioctl in terms if 1/1193182th second, so we hardcode
the 1193182 and leave it at that. It's probably not important.
Change a few other sysbeep() uses which obviously knew that the
argument was in terms of i8254 frequency, and leave alone those
that look like people thought sysbeep() took frequency in hertz.
This eliminates the knowledge of i8254_freq from all but the actual
clock.c code and the prof_machdep.c on amd64 and i386, where I think
it would be smart to ask for help from the timecounters anyway [TBD].
after each SYSINIT() macro invocation. This makes a number of
lightweight C parsers much happier with the FreeBSD kernel
source, including cflow's prcc and lxr.
MFC after: 1 month
Discussed with: imp, rink
ABI and the direction flag, that is it now assumes that the direction
flag is cleared at the entry of a function and it doesn't clear once
more if needed. This new behaviour conforms to the i386/amd64 ABI.
Modify the signal handler frame setup code to clear the DF {e,r}flags
bit on the amd64/i386 for the signal handlers.
jhb@ noted that it might break old apps if they assumed DF == 1 would be
preserved in the signal handlers, but that such apps should be rare and
that older versions of gcc would not generate such apps.
Submitted by: Aurelien Jarno <aurelien aurel32 net>
PR: 121422
Reviewed by: jhb
MFC after: 2 weeks
While the KSE project was quite successful in bringing threading to
FreeBSD, the M:N approach taken by the kse library was never developed
to its full potential. Backwards compatibility will be provided via
libmap.conf for dynamically linked binaries and static binaries will
be broken.
Add "show sysregs" command to ddb. On i386, this gives gdt, idt, ldt,
cr0-4, etc. Support should be added for other platforms that have a
different set of registers for system use.
implemented with macros. This patch improves code readability. Reasoning
behind vidd_* is a sort of "video discipline".
List of macros is supposed to be complete--all methods of video_switch
ought to have their respective macros from now on.
Functionally, this code should be no-op. My intention is to leave current
behaviour of touched code as is.
No objections: rwatson
Silence on: freebsd-current@
Approved by: cognet
for that argument. This will allow DDB to detect the broad category of
reason why the debugger has been entered, which it can use for the
purposes of deciding which DDB script to run.
Assign approximate why values to all current consumers of the
kdb_enter() interface.
