3 Kmscon is a simple terminal emulator based on linux kernel mode setting (KMS).
4 It is an attempt to replace the in-kernel VT implementation with a userspace
9 Kmscon requires the following software:
10 - libudev: providing input, video, etc. device hotplug support
12 Everything else is optional:
14 For video output at least one of the following is required:
15 - fbdev: For framebuffer video output the kernel headers must be installed
16 and located in the default include path.
17 - DRM: For unaccelerated drm output the "libdrm" library must be installed
18 and accessible via pkg-config.
19 - OpenGLES2: For accelerated video output via OpenGLESv2 the following must
20 be installed: libdrm, libgbm, egl, glesv2 (i.e., mesa)
22 By default a very limited built-in keyboard handling is used. To get other
23 keyboard layouts working, the following is required:
24 - libxkbcommon: keyboard handling (optional but strongly recommended)
25 Without libxkbcommon, basic US-ASCII input is provided.
26 libxkbcommon has no public release, yet, but is available on freedesktop.org.
27 Use "--disable-xkbcommon" if you have problems due to compile-errors.
29 Building libxkbcommon from Git without root:
31 - You can fetch it from Git using: git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libxkbcommon
32 - You can then ``./autogen.sh && make`` in its directory
33 - You configure kmscon using:
34 PKG_CONFIG_PATH="libxkbcommon/" ./configure --enable-debug --enable-xkbcommon
35 assuming you cloned it into a subfolder of kmscon.
37 For font handling the following is required:
38 - 8x16: The 8x16 font is a static built-in font which does not require
39 external dependencies.
40 - freetype2: The freetype2 font uses libfreetype2 and libfontconfig to
41 provide a very basic font backend.
42 - pango: drawing text with pango
43 Pango requires: glib, pango, fontconfig, freetype2 and more
45 For multi-seat support you need the following packages:
46 - systemd: Actually only the systemd-logind daemon and library is required.
50 To compile the kmscon binary, run the standard autotools commands:
51 $ ./autogen.sh (you need this only when building from git directly)
52 $ ./configure [--enable-debug] (debug-mode is strongly recommended)
54 $ make install (TODO: this is currently not supported)
55 To compile the test applications, run:
58 If you want only a very basic kmscon program without any major dependencies,
60 $ ./configure --disable-debug --disable-drm --disable-xkbcommon --disable-systemd --disable-pango --disable-freetype2
61 However, you will loose a lot of functionality by dropping all dependencies.
63 The following configure options are available. If build-time dependencies
64 cannot be satisfied, an option is automatically turned off, except if you
65 explicitely enable it via command line:
66 --enable-systemd: This requires the systemd-logind library to provide
67 multi-seat support for kmscon. [default: on]
68 --enable-udev: This requires libudev for hotplugging support. This is
69 currently mandatory and cannot be disabled. [default: on]
70 --enable-fbdev: This adds fbdev video output support. [default: on]
71 --enable-drm: This adds DRM video output support. [default: on]
72 --enable-gles2: This adds OpenGL hardware accelerated font rendering
74 --enable-xkbcommon: Use xkbcommon for internationalized keyboard handling.
76 --enable-f8x16: The 8x16 font is a static built-in fallback font
78 --enable-freetype2: Uses freetype2 and fontconfig as font-backend.
80 --enable-pango: Uses pango as font-backend. [default: on]
81 --enable-bblit: Use simply 2D bit-blitting as renderering fallback
83 --enable-debug: Enable debug mode [default: off]
84 --enable-optimizations: Use GCC code optimizations [default: on]
88 To get usage information, run:
90 You can then run kmscon with:
93 For debug output use "--debug". For verbose output use "--verbose". If you
94 didn't compile DRM support then you can use "--fbdev" to make kmscon select
95 available framebuffer devices.
97 With "--xkb-layout=<lang>" you can switch the keyboard layout.
101 This software is licensed under the terms of the MIT license. Please see
102 ./COPYING for further information.
106 Please see http://github.com/dvdhrm/kmscon/wiki
110 This software is maintained by:
111 David Herrmann <dh.herrmann@googlemail.com>
112 If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact one of the maintainers.
116 The kmscon code is split into several independent subsystems:
118 This code manages the KMS/DRI output and provides OpenGL framebuffers.
120 This draws the text on the screen and provides an API for any terminal
121 emulator to visualize its contents.
123 Main loop implementation.
127 Provides basic Unicode handling.
129 Font loading, caching and drawing operations.
131 All linux input events are captured here and converted to Unicode
132 characters for input handling.
134 The linux VT subsystem integration. This allows to run the application in
135 a classic linux VT like X does.
137 The terminal emulator library.
139 Connects the console, output, input and vte handling into a real terminal.
141 This connects all subsystems into a usable console application.