[systemd-devel] Question about 'vt100-nav' : unknown terminal type

[Graham Cantin]

On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 9:31 PM, Bill Nottingham <notting at redhat.com> wrote:
> HVC device

Being unfamiliar with this term; I poked around and looked it up.
Since I figure others may not be familiar with it either, I'll
elaborate for posterity.

HVC refers to the IBM "Hypervisor Virtual Console" originally
introduced ~2004, for the PPC arch, according to this document's
copyright date:
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/powerpc/hvcs.txt

A quick search ran me these two interesting links from ~2008:
http://www.mail-archive.com/linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org/msg22266.html
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=470839

The latter containing the following interesting information:

Jeremy Katz 2008-11-10 17:10:17 EST
HVC is used on more than ppc these days; it's also the console type
for pvops Xen guests without a framebuffer.  So we should probably
just create them on all arches

Tom "spot" Callaway 2008-11-11 17:45:08 EST
Created attachment 323270 [details]
add hvc device nodes for all arches


If my interpretation of this timeline is correct; wouldn't the ~2004
quirk requiring "vt100-nav" have been solved somewhere in 2005-2006
timeframe before Xen started using it?

Since I'm assuming it's primary usecase is now Xen, and not so many
~2004 IBM PPCs with HWVirt, does this quirk still apply to any
reasonably recent post-3.0/3.1 Xen machine?

If not, then I would suggest moving vt100-nav to a PPC-only quirk, and
heading back towards vt100 for the other archs.

--
[     Graham Cantin      ] | (408) 890-7463 - Google Voice FindME
"Never feel stupid for asking questions, feel stupid for ignoring answers."
[  System Administrator  ] | (XXX) XXX-XXXX xXXX - IT & Office PBX
"You're arrogant for thinking you can, ignorant for thinking you cannot."
[ RFSpot Mobile Services ] | (XXX) XXX-XXXX - Main Office Direct
"Asking questions is important,
because that's when intuition gets converted into inspiration."
[   NASA Ames Research   ] | Building 19, Moffett Field, CA
"As living spies we must recruit men who are intelligent but appear
to be stupid; who seem to be dull but are strong in heart; men who are
agile, vigorous, hardy, and brave; well-versed in lowly matters and able
to endure hunger, cold, filth, and humiliation." - Tu Mu (803-825)