5 ms·

tty0

84 points by axelfontaine 13y ago

Theodores 13y ago
In ye-olden-UNIX-days it was possible to open an xterm in 'console mode' where system type messages would get reported. How do you do this in linux and how come that feature is no longer desired?
- throwaway812 13y ago
  If you try to work on a console in such a mode, it's really spammy and interferes with ... everything. I bet you could get something similar with /dev/console and minicom, or something similar.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    xrootconsole or multitail are useful for this sort of thing.
- claudius 13y ago
  rsyslog can be configured to send certain kinds of messages to all logged-in users, usually emergencies. These end up in all currently open terminals for me, i.e. each and every tab of every xfce4-terminal I have open at the time. I’d guess it’s mostly a configuration issue and people care less about these things nowadays?
- computer 13y ago
  With systemd you simply do: journalctl -f where the f stands for follow.
- sdkmvx 13y ago
  See http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=xconsole http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=xconsole But I have no idea whether this still exists and works on Linux. It is still started by XDM on OpenBSD though.
  - yuubi 13y ago
    http://linux.die.net/man/4/tty_ioctl http://linux.die.net/man/4/tty_ioctl suggests that TIOCCONS, which xconsole uses, has been supported as recently as 2.6.x, when it started requiring privilege (before, it allowed anyone to call it). Maybe that change made xconsole stop working for many users.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    OS X also includes a Console app (it's in the Utilities folder in Applications).
- agumonkey 13y ago
  https://gist.github.com/agumonkey/9730112 https://gist.github.com/agumonkey/9730112 /etc/systemd/journald.conf: ForwardToConsole=yes TTYPath=/dev/tty12 MaxLevelConsole=info
  - simoncion 13y ago
    Sure, you can also do that with most any logger (like, suchas syslog-ng), but how does that address the OP's question? It looks like you're writing to tty12, not to the OP's xterm. :)
    - agumonkey 13y ago
      You're right I totally misread his question.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
zytek 13y ago
Notice how the answer starts with "From the <documentation>" ... It's unfortunate that people no longer dive into original system/program documentation, but google/ask for quick answer. When I started my unix/linux journey some ~14 years ago I always found something more when reading docs and thought of guru's as "these guys that read more docs than I did". Similarly you may noticed how you can no longer write code comfortably when being offline, because you cannot google "how to make dict() return default value for non existing key" etc. I am now in the process of killing this bad habit of googling through my "coding" and sysadmin tasks, rather than reading docs and examples available on my system. PS. sorry for my english
- nwh 13y ago
  Don't be!
- ketralnis 13y ago
  I'm perfectly fine with needing to look up half of the functions I call or syntax for something I don't do often. As long as documentation is good, I just consider it outsourcing the bits of my brain that I'm bad at (memorisation) so that I can spend my thinking time solving my actual problem. But what really bothers me is the number of people that ask someone else before consulting the documentation. IRC, Stack Overflow, and mailing lists seem to be full of questions that are exact copies of #1 in the FAQ or easily answered with a quick trip to `man`. Or even quickly searching the place that they asked for the other twenty people that have asked this question today. Just look at the front page of Stack Overflow. Any any given day it seems to have half "here's a stack trace that I haven't bothered to read. fixitfixitfixit" and half questions that might as well be the exact title of the man page that they should read.
- AceJohnny2 13y ago
  > It's unfortunate that people no longer dive into original system/program documentation, but google/ask for quick answer. I've been thinking about this myself. I think there's good reason: Google (or a bunch of experts on hand) will often provide a better, more concise answer to your specific question than having to search and grok the manpages. As extreme examples, I regularly ragequit the Bash manpage after trying to find the meaning of some keywords, and the Sudoers manpage is notorious with presenting the syntax as EBNF without examples! (a pity GNU Info never fixed their interface, the idea's good)

84 points by axelfontaine 13y ago

In ye-olden-UNIX-days it was possible to open an xterm in 'console mode' where system type messages would get reported. How do you do this in linux and how come that feature is no longer desired?

throwaway812 13y ago
If you try to work on a console in such a mode, it's really spammy and interferes with ... everything. I bet you could get something similar with /dev/console and minicom, or something similar.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  xrootconsole or multitail are useful for this sort of thing.
claudius 13y ago
rsyslog can be configured to send certain kinds of messages to all logged-in users, usually emergencies. These end up in all currently open terminals for me, i.e. each and every tab of every xfce4-terminal I have open at the time. I’d guess it’s mostly a configuration issue and people care less about these things nowadays?
computer 13y ago
With systemd you simply do: journalctl -f where the f stands for follow.
sdkmvx 13y ago
See http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=xconsole http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=xconsole But I have no idea whether this still exists and works on Linux. It is still started by XDM on OpenBSD though.
- yuubi 13y ago
  http://linux.die.net/man/4/tty_ioctl http://linux.die.net/man/4/tty_ioctl suggests that TIOCCONS, which xconsole uses, has been supported as recently as 2.6.x, when it started requiring privilege (before, it allowed anyone to call it). Maybe that change made xconsole stop working for many users.
- ams6110 13y ago
  OS X also includes a Console app (it's in the Utilities folder in Applications).
agumonkey 13y ago
https://gist.github.com/agumonkey/9730112 https://gist.github.com/agumonkey/9730112 /etc/systemd/journald.conf: ForwardToConsole=yes TTYPath=/dev/tty12 MaxLevelConsole=info
- simoncion 13y ago
  Sure, you can also do that with most any logger (like, suchas syslog-ng), but how does that address the OP's question? It looks like you're writing to tty12, not to the OP's xterm. :)
  - agumonkey 13y ago
    You're right I totally misread his question.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

zytek 13y ago

Notice how the answer starts with "From the <documentation>" ... It's unfortunate that people no longer dive into original system/program documentation, but google/ask for quick answer. When I started my unix/linux journey some ~14 years ago I always found something more when reading docs and thought of guru's as "these guys that read more docs than I did". Similarly you may noticed how you can no longer write code comfortably when being offline, because you cannot google "how to make dict() return default value for non existing key" etc. I am now in the process of killing this bad habit of googling through my "coding" and sysadmin tasks, rather than reading docs and examples available on my system. PS. sorry for my english

nwh 13y ago
Don't be!
ketralnis 13y ago
I'm perfectly fine with needing to look up half of the functions I call or syntax for something I don't do often. As long as documentation is good, I just consider it outsourcing the bits of my brain that I'm bad at (memorisation) so that I can spend my thinking time solving my actual problem. But what really bothers me is the number of people that ask someone else before consulting the documentation. IRC, Stack Overflow, and mailing lists seem to be full of questions that are exact copies of #1 in the FAQ or easily answered with a quick trip to `man`. Or even quickly searching the place that they asked for the other twenty people that have asked this question today. Just look at the front page of Stack Overflow. Any any given day it seems to have half "here's a stack trace that I haven't bothered to read. fixitfixitfixit" and half questions that might as well be the exact title of the man page that they should read.
AceJohnny2 13y ago
> It's unfortunate that people no longer dive into original system/program documentation, but google/ask for quick answer. I've been thinking about this myself. I think there's good reason: Google (or a bunch of experts on hand) will often provide a better, more concise answer to your specific question than having to search and grok the manpages. As extreme examples, I regularly ragequit the Bash manpage after trying to find the meaning of some keywords, and the Sudoers manpage is notorious with presenting the syntax as EBNF without examples! (a pity GNU Info never fixed their interface, the idea's good)