Non X console removal

[Alan Cox]

On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 11:37:16AM -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> Colin merely stated his opinion (which is widely shared) that the vt
> subsystem is one of the most horrible kernel subsystems, api-wise and
> otherwise, and the world would be a better place without it. 

Let me explain as tty layer maintainer exactly how many emails I've had from
Red Hat employees or Fedora developers wanting to discuss the VT consoles

- One - and that was about saving fonts over a hibernate.

You actually need the vt layer for a few things
- boot up
- a way to cope when X breaks again (most updates on some boxes)
- a way to undo things when selinux screws up on a package update and breaks
  pam
- a way for end users to be guided for debugging problems
- a way to reliably see kernel messages

Longer term the last one should go away, but the others won't.

Users don't need to know about the VT consoles unless it breaks and there is no
reason to fire up more than a single console I suspect, but you do need the one
hidden console somewhere for the user to be able to reach when stuff breaks.

Now as the API - it has interesting design features that go back ten years to
a different model of usage. Right now that code is all getting revamped, fine
grain locked and tidied so now is a very good time for the distro folks to
produce and send out a "What we hate about the console and how we think it
could be addressed" email...

Alan