Re: Soft scrolling on framebuffer consoles - with GPM Handling - revised for kernel 6.18.28 (etc.)

> 
> Le 12 mai 2026 à 18:20, Alan Mackenzie <[email protected]> a écrit :
> 
> Hello, Vitaly.
> 
>> On Wed, May 13, 2026 at 00:24:57 +0400, Vitaly Zdanevich wrote:
>>   Thanks.
> 
> Thank you for trying it out!
> 
>>   Â
> 
>>   Can it [patch to enable soft scrolling in the gentoo-sources kernel]
>>   be integrated into gentoo-sources? Or with USE flag?
> 
> This would be difficult.  The patch is highly unofficial, and has not
> received any formal testing.  There have definitely been bugs in earlier
> versions of it, and it would be foolish to assert the current version is
> bug free.
> 
> To be integrated into gentoo-sources, its maintainer would need
> persuading that the code is (?relatively) free of bugs.  But this would
> make gentoo-sources significantly different from the upstream kernel,
> with all the hassle that would entail.
> 
> The best way of integrating the patch would be for it to be accepted by
> the upstream kernel maintainers.  I don't see this as likely.  These
> maintainers are (by necessity) highly conservative, and the process for
> getting new code accepted into Linux is rigorous in the extreme.
> 
> Besides, the decision some years ago to remove soft scrolling from the
> kernel was taken by Linus Torvalds personally, on account of some
> security problem associated with it.  I've not been able to find a
> description of this bug, or a test case for it, but I did read a rumour
> that it was something to do with changing the screen dimensions (e.g. by
> loading a different sized font) when there was an existing scrolling
> buffer.  Or something like that.  So I would expect significant political
> problems here, too.
> 
> So, while I would like the patch to be incorporated into gentoo-sources,
> I can't see it as likely to happen.
> 
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

However, using /etc/portage/patches (or w/e the path is; on mobile) it should be possible to make use of the patch somewhat easy?