Submission for comp-unix-microport

[UNIX-UNIX Cp]

Path: tolerant!voder!apple!bbn!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uwmcsd1!marque!uunet!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!pcg
From: pcg at aber-cs.UUCP (Piercarlo Grandi)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: >4 virtual cons on V/AT 2.4
Message-ID: <485 at aber-cs.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jan 89 21:45:31 GMT
Reply-To: pcg at cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Distribution: eunet,world
Organization: Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth, Wales
	(Disclaimer: my statements are purely personal)
Lines: 44

In article <197 at wa3wbu.UUCP> you write:
    
        Has Anyone added more than the default 4 virtual consoles to
    Microport V/AT 2.4 ?  On 2.3 all that was required was to add the
    device names and edit inittab. 2.4 seems to be hard coded in the config
    for only 4. What is the procedure for adding addition virtual consoles,
    say like 10 total ?  Thanks!

I have eight consoles here without problems. All you have to do
is to look at the dfile.wini file, line that begins with 'kd' and
modify it to

    kd		0	8	* maximum of 8 virtual consoles

if it is not already 8. Then either you use /etc/vcon, that automagically
creates the /dev/cons? files it needs, or you create them yourself and use
/etc/getty on each of them.

Note that the major device number is 0, not 5 like I saw in another posting:

    /etc/mknod /dev/cons7 c 0 7

Two words of advice:

Don't use /etc/vcon, it behaves funnily (somebody posted a list of funnies,
maybe it was you). Use /etc/getty.

Better still, use uutty, for console, local and dialin logins. A bit quicker,
a bit safer, you have sources... It works virtually out of the box; with a
couple of lines of modification it works better (add MAIL to the environment,
have /etc/issue copied to stdout before asking login:, output a newline in
the state entered after the password is read). Other little mods were
described in some previous posting by sombody, either here or comp.unix.xenix.


Overall I am quite more pleased with 2.4 than with 2.3; in particular the
disk driver looks, well, significantly improved. Some fairly awful
(documented!) bugs remain, e.g. in the compiler, fsck, dcopy, sdb, floating
point handling, but is quite more usable. Still it is no match for
SysV3.2/386, and I am going to get it (my 386 machine has just arrived) as
soon as I decide which supplier to choose.
-- 
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi	   | INET: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk at nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth, Wales | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg