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happy_h
n00b
Joined: 01 Jun 2010
Posts: 3
Location: Russia
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 Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 8:25 pm Post subject: [SOLVED] Can't scroll system console |
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Hi everyone.
I've a problem here. I've installed Gentoo (spent near 4 days =). And now I'm already at the finish line, but I have a problem, my system console doesn't scroll back when I press Shift+PgUp.
When I installed Gentoo, it worked and had a good memory, so I could look through very old messages. Than I installed X server, tried to run it, but got a message about missing fb0 device. I googled a little, found out, that it's a framebuffer device, so I included some fb support in the kernel, added something like
to grub.conf and tried it. Later I found out, that framebuffer isn't critical for the x server, so I removed that string from grub.conf, because I didn't like the framebuffer console, it was laggy, slow scrolling (ywrap option made it better, but still not good enough) and had a very short memory, despite that I set it to 32767 kb in the kernel.
After reboot I got good old console, but scrolling wasn't working.
I believe that I'll need this console more than once in my life, so I want to get it working as I want it to and than move forward, configuring kde and so on.
Tried googling, searching here at the forum, but no success.
Any suggestions? May be, I somehow disabled scrolling? Is there some way to enable it again than?
Thanks.
Last edited by happy_h on Fri Jun 11, 2010 11:42 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Hu
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Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 21709
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| Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 2:15 am Post subject: |
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Switching virtual consoles can forget any scrolled off text. To confirm that you have a real problem, if you run for a in {1..50}; do echo $a; done and then try to scroll up immediately after it completes, then you cannot get to the earlier numbers, correct?
As a workaround if you cannot fix this, app-misc/screen can provide terminal multiplexing and scrollback. It runs on the Linux console, in an xterm, or in other terminal emulators. I have also seen people mention app-misc/tmux as an alternative to screen, but I cannot comment on whether its features would address your needs. |
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pianosaurus
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Joined: 19 Apr 2004
Posts: 944
Location: Bash$
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| Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 3:59 am Post subject: Re: Can't scroll system console |
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| happy_h wrote: | [...], added something like
to grub.conf and tried it.
[...]
had a very short memory, despite that I set it to 32767 kb in the kernel. |
From memory, I believe 865 is 1680x1050, right? Using an 8x10 font, that's 22 kB. You should have nearly 1500 pages of scrollback with that buffer, but remember that you need to dedicate 32 MB of video memory or use soft-scrolling (which is slower). Judging by your complaint, you are probably using soft-scrolling now, so you could try setting VGACON_SOFT_SCROLLBACK=N in the kernel config (use / to search in menuconfig).
I don't know how the kernel handles buffers that large (it's a bit excessive). It may be that it reverted to the default of 32 kB. Anyway, soft-scrolling is faster at lower resolutions, so if you spend most your time in X, set vga=771 (800x600) or vga=773 (1024x768) and the scrollback to something like 256 kB (40 pages at vga=771). Using ywrap, that should be pretty fast. To try it out without recompiling, set fbcon=scrollback:256k on the kernel line in grub.conf.
Addendum: Also, as Hu said, switching VT only copies the current screen, not the entire buffer. 50 lines is probably not enough if you use 865, though. The output of dmesg is a good test.
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happy_h
n00b
Joined: 01 Jun 2010
Posts: 3
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 6:43 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for your replies.
| Hu wrote: | | Switching virtual consoles can forget any scrolled off text. To confirm that you have a real problem, if you run for a in {1..50}; do echo $a; done and then try to scroll up immediately after it completes, then you cannot get to the earlier numbers, correct? |
That's correct, I can't scroll to the numbers above the screen edge. I thought there might be some flag somewhere which enables and disables scrolling. But if I won't find any, I guesss I'll try app-misc/screen.
pianosaurus,
I believe that 865 is 1280x800, or 1440x900, but not higher (I'm using Dell notebook, it's display ratio is 8/5). I'll try your solution later today, but I really want to use plain console, not framebuffer. |
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happy_h
n00b
Joined: 01 Jun 2010
Posts: 3
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2010 11:41 am Post subject: |
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| The problem was in the high value of CONFIG_VGACON_SOFT_SCROLLBACK_SIZE. 32768 is too high, 16384 is high too. I set it to 4096 and everything works. |
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