Virtcon

Virtcon is the system terminal. It is a critical part of bringup and provides graphical output with minimal hardware requrements.

Legacy Virtcon

The legacy implementation is written in C++ and graphical output is limited to bitmap text and basic primitives such as pixel aligned rectangles. Legacy Virtcon can be found in virtcon/.

New Virtcon

The new version of Virtcon is written in Rust and powered by Carnelian. Carnelian enable advanced vector graphics and truetype text rendering while maintaining minimal hardware requirements.

Goals

• Minimal resource usage.
• Maximize code reuse with Terminal app.
• Splash screen mode for startup and shutdown.
• Runtime product configuration.
• Flicker free single framebuffer mode.

Roadmap

1. Improve splash screen mode.
2. Implement all features of legacy Virtcon.
3. Enable new Virtcon by default.
4. Remove legacy Virtcon code and dependencies.

Using new Virtcon

Configure, and build

fx set core.x64 --args use_legacy_virtcon=false # or similar
fx build

then pave and boot.

Testing

Configure

fx set core.x64 --with //src/binrgup/bin/virtcon2:tests

Then test

fx test virtual_console_tests