Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] Support redirect -curses over a character driver

[Avi Kivity <avi@qumranet.com>]

Anthony Liguori wrote:
> Avi Kivity wrote:
>> Anthony Liguori wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm on the fence because while I like what I've posted, I'd like to 
>>> eventually tunnel the curses data over VNC in which case, having a 
>>> separate option makes sense.  -curses would imply that the GUI would 
>>> be rendered with curses.
>>>
>>
>> I'm lost.  What does 'tunnel curses data over vnc' mean? A new 
>> character cell based encoding (vs. pixel-based)?
>
> Yes.  I was actually thinking of tunneling the curses data but another 
> option would be a more proper character-based encoding.  The advantage 
> of that is that you could also send over fonts.
>

curses is very un-vnc-like, it's a single stream an you need all of it 
to get something meaningful.  Much more in the spirit of vnc is to 
encode 'character tiles', and to allow coalesced updates like the 
regular vnc protocol.

>>> So, 'qemu -curses' does what you think, 'qemu -cga 
>>> telnet::1024,server -vnc :2' does what I want and still lets you 
>>> interact with VNC, and then down the road 'qemu -cga 
>>> vnc:org.qemu.vga -vnc :2' allows CGA tunneling over VNC.
>>>
>>
>> What's -cga?
>
> That would be the second option which controlled what the CGA data was 
> sent over.  stdio would be the default.  It doesn't have to be -cga.

Ah, CGA as in color graphics adapter.  Why not add the encoding to vnc 
and use the regular -vnc option?  if both viewer and server support the 
feature, and if the display is in text mode, it would be used automatically.


-- 
Do not meddle in the internals of kernels, for they are subtle and quick to panic.