david@david-mb ~/dev/kmscon $ ls -la total 3424 drwxr-xr-x 12 david david 4096 Oct 29 11:14 . drwxr-xr-x 30 david david 4096 Oct 29 09:33 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 51900 Oct 29 11:02 aclocal.m4 -rwxr-xr-x 1 david david 113 Dec 1 2012 autogen.sh drwxr-xr-x 2 david david 4096 Oct 29 11:02 autom4te.cache drwxr-xr-x 2 david david 4096 Oct 29 11:02 build-aux -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 4082 Oct 29 11:02 config.h -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 3718 Oct 29 11:02 config.h.in -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 49283 Oct 29 11:02 config.log -rwxr-xr-x 1 david david 64743 Oct 29 11:02 config.status -rwxr-xr-x 1 david david 546241 Oct 29 11:02 configure -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 25163 Oct 29 10:52 configure.ac -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 6759 May 10 17:16 COPYING drwxr-xr-x 3 david david 4096 Oct 29 10:20 docs drwxr-xr-x 4 david david 4096 Oct 29 11:14 external drwxr-xr-x 2 david david 4096 May 10 17:16 fblog -rwxr-xr-x 1 david david 22043 Oct 29 11:14 genshader -rwxr-xr-x 1 david david 23290 Oct 29 11:14 genunifont drwxr-xr-x 8 david david 4096 Oct 29 11:12 .git -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 544 Oct 29 09:41 .gitignore -rwxr-xr-x 1 david david 1009988 Oct 29 11:14 kmscon -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 950068 Oct 29 11:12 kmscon-8.tar.xz -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 871 Oct 29 11:14 libeloop.la drwxr-xr-x 2 david david 4096 Oct 29 11:14 .libs -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 865 Oct 29 11:14 libshl.la -rwxr-xr-x 1 david david 293012 Oct 29 11:02 libtool -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 938 Oct 29 11:14 libuterm.la drwxr-xr-x 2 david david 4096 Oct 29 11:02 m4 -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 136680 Oct 29 11:02 Makefile -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 14674 Oct 29 10:33 Makefile.am -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 154345 Oct 29 11:02 Makefile.in -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 0 Oct 29 11:14 .man_fixup -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 949 Oct 29 11:14 mod-bbulk.la -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 958 Oct 29 11:14 mod-gltex.la -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 1041 Oct 29 11:14 mod-pango.la -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 963 Oct 29 11:14 mod-unifont.la -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 12143 Oct 29 11:01 NEWS -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 4695 Oct 29 10:52 README drwxr-xr-x 4 david david 16384 Oct 29 11:14 src -rw-r--r-- 1 david david 23 Oct 29 11:02 stamp-h1 drwxr-xr-x 3 david david 4096 Oct 29 11:02 tests david@david-mb ~/dev/kmscon $
KMS/DRM based System Console
kmscon is a system console for linux. It does not depend on any graphics-server on your system (like X.org), but instead provides a raw console layer that can be used independently. It can replace the linux kernel console entirely but was designed to work well side-by-side, too. Even though initially targeted at providing internationalization to the system-console, it has grown into a fully modularized console layer including features like multi-head support, internationalized font rendering, XKB-compatible keyboard handling, hardware-accelerated graphics access and more.
Several sub-projects emerged out of kmscon. Have a look at:
Why the name?
kmscon uses the Direct-Rendering-Manager (DRM) of the linux kernel to access graphics devices. The API that performs mode-setting on displays/monitors is called Kernel-Mode-Setting (KMS). Hence its name kmscon. Today, kmscon can also make use of other graphics-APIs. But these were mainly introduced for backwards-compatibility. KMS/DRM is the way to go!