Anton Aylward wrote:
"Console" meaning what, exactly? To me, being an old UNIX hack from long before GUI, a console is the text mode terminal device hanging of a RS-232 port. What is it to you? Do you mean the text-mode "console" on tt1 that applies whether you are in "runlevel" 1, 3 or 5 or the GUI mode login running under Xorg and XMD/KDM/GDM that only applies if you are running in 'runlevel 5" (or "systemctl default.target" being 'graphical.target' rather than merely 'multi-user.target')
Why am I making an issue of this? The term 'console' does have a specific meaning and that meaning is distinct from the GUI.
See console(4) pam_console(8) and of course consoletype(1) whic will when run as 'consoletype fg' tell you if you are at the console or not.
There's another important difference that Lynn (forget last name) brought up -- There's "Text mode" (booting in a BIOS supported VGA text mode) where scrolling is done in hardward, vs. what you get in most grub+initrd setups = a framebuffer, a sofware window that displays text, that is scrolled by software routines that scrolls significantly more slowly than the VGA text mode (VGA text mode usually scrolls by too fast to catch details -- but can let you see anomalies if you are used to watching a bootup, and can let you see the last thing on the screen before something hung...)... the framebuffer, scrolling the bootup process can slow down the boot process insignificantly and is still usually too blurry to read). I wasn't able to get any bootup display booting from grub+initrd -- I couldn't figure out how to make it boot in a VGA text mode and it refused to display a bootup log on my VGA-compat, on-board display card (MGA200 on board -- only enough memory to display 1024x768 in 32bit or 1280x1024 in 16bit color (on a 1920x1200 flat panel that came w/system -- it's meant to be a text console, not a GUI). I was only able to keep VGA text mode boot by using lilo. Of course initrd ignores all those settings and tries to do it's own thing, which meant I got no output UNTIL I saw a login prompt (in runlevel 3). Not very comforting -- didn't know if it was booting up or was hung... Forced me back to lilo and no initrd, ever since -- which is proving to be a major problem now with recent ill-thought-out changes that serve no purpose. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org