screen, manuals, ...

[knarf@nasim.cube.net (Frank Bartels)]

sjg@phlem.ph.kcl.ac.uk wrote:

> > What are the advantages of screen?  Why should I use it?   I know its
> > a matter of personal preference, but so far I've found myself using most
> > of Unix stuff that the list has found useful.   Never thought I'd
> > admit it, but Unix utils are useful :-)
> 
> Screen is similar to Juergens virtual consoles. I don't know which is the
> faster, but the vcons1d really screams on hardware-assisted scrolling
> machines :-)

I won't compare screen to the virtual consoles. Screen is intended to be
used on *one* text-based terminal, but the virtual consoles give you
some terminals where screen can be run on. ;)

I think it would be a great idea to combine both. Running GEM or
anything else on the "real" console and launching screen on vt01. If
you redefine your function-keys on vt01 via xkey to F10->^A-0, etc.,
you should be able to switch between the screens very easy. So you'll
get the speed of the virtual consoles and the advantages of screen
(e.g. Cut'n'Paste, Scrollback, Snapshots, etc.) *and* you'll save
memory, because only one virtual console is needed, which usually eats
twice the screen memory instead of just the amount of the character
buffer of screen.

And remember: screen can be run through a serial line, the virtual
consoles can't.

[I hope I can realize my dreams above soon, but I still had no time to
install MiNT-Net since I received a larger hard-disk for my TT ;)]

> My manual paging suite is now available for ftp at
>                   phl[ei]m.ph.kcl.ac.uk:/pub/MiNT/mans/*
> 
> It copes with compressed man and cat pages, calls apropos when invoked with
> the -k option and it comes with a simple-minded mkwhatis (needs to be run
> from the /usr/man directory) which will generate the whatis database from
> the compressed man pages.

Sounds great, I'll get it soon. Does it know what to do if MANPATH is
set to /usr/local/man:/usr/man?

> Now a compressed filesystem would be a neat idea :-)))))))) So long as we had
> a compressed fsck as well :-)))))))))

I won't use it, because MiNT & MinixFS is not *that* stable. Just
think about all the problems the DOS user have with their stacker or
what's it called. And they don't have an update-daemon, they never
have to sync...

Did you have a look at gzexe?

I'd like to see an 'info'-program which copes with gzipped
info-pages:

% du /usr/local/info
6380    /usr/local/info

[These are kilobytes, no dumb SysV du ;)]

Bye,
Knarf
-- 
    Frank Bartels    |      UUCP/ZModem: + 49 89 5469593       | MiNT is
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