Re: NetBSD vs. VirtualBox

At Sat, 22 Aug 2026 19:48:48 -0400, Michael <[email protected]> wrote:
Subject: Re: NetBSD vs. VirtualBox
>
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2026 22:29:46 -0000 (UTC)
> [email protected] (Michael van Elst) wrote:
>
> > [email protected] ("Greg A. Woods") writes:
> >
> > > However it would be
> > >nice to be able to explicitly say what size terminal should be emulated,
> > >with some/all of the same screen types as the old vga(4) driver
> > >supports.
> >
> > For a raster display, the kernel has only a couple of fixed size fonts
> > available and selects the "best" one to produce a 80x25 terminal.
> > You can compile more fonts into the kernel.
>
> You can also configure what terminal size wscons should aim for:
> options RASOPS_DEFAULT_WIDTH=80
> options RASOPS_DEFAULT_HEIGHT=25

Those are a far cry from something useful in /etc/wscons.conf though.

For its primary use wscons is fundamentally a character display
emulating a traditional "terminal", not a raster display.

As I understand it the rasops(9) subsystem is meant to serve as a
generic form of "text mode accelerator" (to use the phrase used in the
vga(4) manual page).

So given that genfb(4) and other raster display drivers rely on
rasops(9) to "fill in the gaps" left by not having hardware to do
character manipulations, wouldn't it make sense for rasops(9) to also
support some or all or more than all of the basic "screen types"
provided by the likes of vga(4)?  Those were widely used by some of us!

I guess it is more disconcerting for the likes of virtual machines where
the display emulation may change from one boot to another but there's no
current built-in and easy way to inform wscons userland configurations
of such changes.


Also, is there a way to share the trackpad with a VM in VirtualBox?
When I attach it directly it ends up being totally owned by the VM and
the only way I found to get it back is to halt and quit the VM!  (I do
get a mouse cursor from wsmoused, and I can move it around with drags on
the track pad, and with a click I can highlight text, but that's about
it so far.)


Also, BTW, I see in the NetBSD Guide, in the chapter on virtualization,
that the vesa command should work in /boot.cfg.  However I can't get
this to work, no matter what form of argument I give it, and no matter
where I put it in /boot.cfg.  Indeed even a "vesa list" command in
/boot.cfg doesn't seem to do anything either.  I can't get the "gop"
command to work from /boot.cfg in my UEFI-booting UTM/QEMU VM either.

(In theory the "gop" vs "vesa" boot command suffers the same
inconsistency "problem" as the terminal types if it did work in
/boot.cfg, though of course it's less likely for the emulated firmware
to change from one boot to another, even in a virtual environment.)

--
					Greg A. Woods <[email protected]>

Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <[email protected]>
Planix, Inc. <[email protected]>     Avoncote Farms <[email protected]>

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