From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1E3i3p-0003mh-39 for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 12 Aug 2005 18:31:33 -0400 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1E3i3I-0003d1-RJ for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 12 Aug 2005 18:31:01 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1E3i3E-0003bW-Nz for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 12 Aug 2005 18:30:57 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1E3i3D-0003Tg-N1 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 12 Aug 2005 18:30:55 -0400 Received: from [208.186.28.7] (helo=mail.nebonet.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1E3i6M-0006KF-VF for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 12 Aug 2005 18:34:11 -0400 Received: from localhost (scanner.nebonet.com [208.186.28.8]) by mail.nebonet.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 38ED019DA52 for ; Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:15:37 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mail.nebonet.com ([208.186.28.7]) by localhost (scanner [208.186.28.8]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 23768-01-7 for ; Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:18:58 -0600 (MDT) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (f4s.dsl.xmission.com [166.70.40.38]) by mail.nebonet.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 67DEE19D96F for ; Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:15:35 -0600 (MDT) Message-ID: <42FD2049.2050903@omniflux.com> Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:18:49 -0600 From: Omniflux User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: The development of GRUB 2 References: <4219D62D.3000109@omniflux.com> <200503022233.18661.okuji@enbug.org> <42F94D30.7030204@omniflux.com> <874q9vm9ek.fsf@student.han.nl> In-Reply-To: <874q9vm9ek.fsf@student.han.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p10 (Debian) at nebonet.com Subject: Re: x86 serial support X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GRUB 2 List-Id: The development of GRUB 2 List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 22:31:10 -0000 Marco Gerards wrote: >>>BTW, do you have any suggestion about the so-called "dumb terminal"? >> >>The only thing I can think of is to disable the menu and replace clear >>screen with a newline, which is what Legacy does IIRC. > > Why can't we use a menu? Is it really that slow to update the menu > over a serial console? This is a communication problem caused by the fact that dumb terminal does not have a universally accepted definition. In this case, we are talking about a terminal without cursor control, such as a glass tty or teletype. The following paragraph can be ignored if the above clarifies the issue. It contains examples for anyone else. To implement a menu for this terminal would entail redrawing the screen each time something must be changed. This could be incredibly slow as many of these terminals have speeds of less then 110 bps. This also leaves the problem of marking the current menu selection, as we cannot use either color or reverse video. We would also be unable to reposition the cursor to (0,0) for the redraw, because we cannot be sure of the display size and thus the number of newlines which must be sent to move a line of text to that position. If the terminal is actually a display on paper terminal, we also have the problem of the waste of paper redisplaying the screen would create. Why anyone would now be using such a terminal I do not know, but if we do not mention the proper way to use such a terminal, or not to use such a terminal at all, I'm sure someone will try it. -- Omniflux