Unix-pc - Windows sans ua

[Jim Rosenberg]

In article <6250 at umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> randy at umn-cs.UUCP (Randy Orrison) writes:
>I'd like to be able to open up multiple windows on my 7300 ("Full screen Unix")
>but I don't want to have to go through the ua.  Is there a command that ua
>uses that I can use to open a new window?

The method I use and am completely happy with is multiple getty's on
/dev/window.  I normally run with 6 different shell windows, & it's been so
long since I've done *anything* connected with ua I can't even remember.  A new
window is created by opening /dev/window.  Opening /dev/w_ will *not* work --
the open will fail.  When I first got my 3b1 I took quite seriously the
hell-fire and brimstone in /etc/inittab about not editing it.  By now it's my
opinion that the reason for all the stringent warnings about editing
/etc/inittab are because setgetty is such a truly awful piece of trash that
it will hang if you've munged certain fields in inittab; but if you know what
you're doing it can be edited with impunity.  Here's what I have in my inittab
pertaining to multiple gettys:

 vid:2:respawn:/etc/getty window 9600
 v2:2:respawn:/etc/getty window 9600
 v3:2:respawn:/etc/getty window 9600
 v4:2:respawn:/etc/getty window 9600
 v5:2:respawn:/etc/getty window 9600
 v6:2:respawn:/etc/getty window 9600
:v7:2:respawn:/etc/getty window 9600

If you edit inittab you do have to observe the following two precautions, as
far as I know:  (1) Be very careful with column 1.  (Or column 0, for those
so inclined.  :-))  It must be either a space or a colon; make it a colon for
a getty that you might want to run only occasionally.  (2) Be careful with the
first field after column 1.  You can add lines to inittab with whatever names
you want in this field, provided there is no conflict with existing names;
but *changing* the name field can have unhealthy consequences for any shell
scripts that might reference that inittab line.  I believe setgetty uses (or
perhaps intends to use, once you get past all the bugs) this field as its
argument.

Now from time to time various people have posted articles blaming acne,
lumbago, fractious puppies, and other ills of the world on multiple getty's.
I can't swear that multiple getty's will never under any circumstances cause
a problem, but I've been running with them almost continuously for months, and
have suffered *not one single problem* related to multiple getty's.  I.e. I
think they're great, but a few folks up here have bad-mouthed them once in a
while.  As the saying goes, your mileage may vary, but I think you'll like them
a lot!

>I heard mention of something called
>'windy' but can't find it on my system, does that have any relevance?

If you do anything with any software that messes with windows, windy is
indispensable and a great contribution to civilization.  It lets you set
window parameters directly, and will spawn a command in a window with indicated
parameters.  Some applications that run in a window don't restore the window
to full-screen when done.  windy will fix this in a jiffy.  windy is great for
adjusting the size of a window from the shell.  My normal configuration is 5
24x80 windows on the top of the screen, 1 7x80 window at the bottom of the
screen.  I boot with an 8x9 font as my boot font (another thing you're supposed
not to be able to do) so I get the skinny window at the bottom of the screen
with a characrer row's worth of pixels between it and whatever 24x80 window I
have showing.  YOU WANT windy.  I can't imagine a 7300 without it.
-- 
 Jim Rosenberg
     CIS: 71515,124                         decvax!idis! \
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