Re: [edk2-discuss] Google Summer of Code Interested Student

["Laszlo Ersek" <lersek@redhat.com>]

Hi Nate,

(adding Leif and Ard)

On 03/13/21 03:52, Desimone, Nathaniel L wrote:
> I've created a new wiki page for this task with all the information I
> have gathered thus far. I've done some more experimentation and found
> that there are several newer terminal emulators that don't support
> DEC Special Graphics so I've reduced the number of modes where DEC
> Special Graphics should be preferred. Laszlo, if you could take a
> look at the terminal type matrix I created that would be very
> helpful.
>
> https://github.com/tianocore/tianocore.github.io/wiki/Tasks-Terminal-driver-improvements

(

My background:

I settled on plain (non-UTF-8) xterm around 1998, and have been using it
ever since. Whenever something was off, I always tried to hammer the
application into conformance with my particular xterm setup, rather than
the other way around. I also have some quirky terminal settings -- for
me, "backspace" generates ^H / keycode 22 (stty sets erase to ^H),
"delete" generates keycode 119, and there's no "rubout". I still don't
use UTF-8 (I use latin2).

)

* Regarding ArmVirtPkg, I stick with the default TTY_TERMINAL=FALSE
  setting (which means VT-100). Using that setting, I see the following
  kind of "ASCII approximation" for box drawing:

  /------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
  |                                Boot Manager                                  |
  \------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

  I'm really happy with this, as I don't care much for nice-looking
  boxes; instead I prefer portability.

  (NB: this seems to disagree with your "Current Behavior (Which is
  wrong)" line for VT100, as it suggests CP437. That's not what I'm
  seeing with VT100.)

  TTY_TERMINAL=TRUE would mainly affect backspace / delete I think -- as
  far as I recall, that's why I asked Roy not to make TTY_TERMINAL=TRUE
  the default, in 2015:

  http://mid.mail-archive.com/555458DB.3090602@redhat.com
  http://mid.mail-archive.com/CAFECyb_E+bGZt5xv7QhRqyD0jX=AzoEMw7VW_tjZr+E=sQf8ww@mail.gmail.com

  (I'd like to CC Roy, but I can't tell if he's now working for Linaro,
  Cavium, HPE, Marvell, or another company.)

* Regarding OvmfPkg, currently PC_ANSI is hard-coded, and for me it
  looks like this:

  ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄż
  ł                                Boot Manager                                  ł
  ŔÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄŮ

  Obviously I'd much prefer if I got the simple ASCII approximation here
  as well.

* Whether VT100 and/or PC_ANSI and/or TTY_TERM are *officially* supposed
  to use DEC Special Graphics, I can't tell.

  I know what my preferences are:

  - the current BackSpace and Delete mappings (which work fine for me
    with both VT100 and PC_ANSI, but *not* with TTY_TERM),

  - and the most primitive ASCII mapping (no special graphics, no UTF-8
    sequences, etc). I really like a super dumb terminal, where taking
    simple "ASCII screenshots" (and pasting them into plaintext emails!)
    is *trivial*.

  ... Looking at your "Expected Behavior" table, there is only one line
  left with "poor man's ASCII" -- namely, TTY_TERM. Unfortunately,
  TTY_TERM breaks my BackSpace / Delete settings :(

* In summary, I'd prefer if (a) VT100 stayed as-is (using "poor man's
  ASCII", as seen in ArmVirtPkg), and (b) if OVMF used *that* VT100,
  rather than PC_ANSI, by default.

Thanks!
Laszlo