New Plop 20.1 scroll not work

[The_Raven]

Hello

I have installed the new plop 20.1. So far so good, only one little problem:
Scrolling up and down with "shift pageUP/pageDOWN" is not working.

Any idea how to enable scroll? 

[Elmar]

Hello,

here it works, in the console and terminal.

Where exactly doesn't it work?

[The_Raven]

Hi Elmar,
thank you for answering.
I think i need to be more precise:
I use the live system small edition. This is console only. When it has bootet, and i type "dmesg" for example, then i can't scroll up.
The same for other commands like smartctl for example.
Is this working in your setup?

[Elmar]

I see. Scrolling doesn't work in the framebuffer mode. It has to do with the kernel.

I update the kernel and check the framebuffer configuration settings.

[The_Raven]

Cool, you have circled the problem 

[Elmar]

I have bad news. The support for scrolling in the framebuffer mode has been removed. That hurts.

https://souclou.com/in-the-linux-kernel-support-for-scrolling-text-was-removed-from-the-text-console/

Maybe it comes back in the future.

[The_Raven]

Noooooo! 
Ok, very bad news. Console without scrolling is useless.
Hm, any idea to work around this? Maybe switching to non framebuffer console or something like this?

[Elmar]

Noooooo! 

I feel the same. Its such a useful feature. It seems the decision came quickly, because it was still implemented in the kernel 5.8.5. but removed in 5.8.11.

Hm, any idea to work around this? Maybe switching to non framebuffer console or something like this?

Either using commands with "less".  Ex. "dmesg | less". With this you have also more options like searching and so on.

Or using the classic text mode 80x25 or 80x50. Its the second option of the Live CD Boot Menu. The classic text mode has the advantage that it is faster than framebuffer, but has less chars. I always choose that mode when I expect a lot of screen output like file copy with "mc" or "cp -avr".


But I think, the feature comes back.

[The_Raven]

This feature MUST came back!
But don't let us waste too much time with talking about that and let's focus on how to work around this.

For legacy i found a "Work a round":
Booting with kernel parameters "vga=1 nomodeset" and changing the font to "lat4-10" is acceptable.

For UEFI:
I can't get ride of the FB device. Tried with "nomodeset", "i915.modeset=0", "vga=1", "set gfxpayload=text" and blacklisting (!) the "fb" modul.
Nothing worked so far, FB is always active 
Any other ideas are welcome!

[Elmar]

For legacy i found a "Work a round":
Booting with kernel parameters "vga=1 nomodeset"

Yes, these are the options for the second boot menu entry of the Live Version "Plop Linux text mode" and the first entry of the Desktop Version when you use LILO.

For UEFI:
I can't get ride of the FB device. Tried with "nomodeset", "i915.modeset=0", "vga=1", "set gfxpayload=text" and blacklisting (!) the "fb" modul.
Nothing worked so far, FB is always active 
Any other ideas are welcome!

Legacy text mode is not available for UEFI. Framebuffer is the lowlevel text mode.

[The_Raven]

So this means that there is no chance to scroll when booting UEFI?
I have reverted to plop 19.4, too many "stress" ATM 
Linus should first fix the scroll function. 

There are so many raspberrys and other devices out there which run only on console and they remove this wonderful feature.
They should better fix the framebuffer in general, i had a lot of problems with devices freezing in framebuffer mode.

[Elmar]

Some Kernel developers think that nobody is using consoles anymore.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2020/9/15/641

However, this patch brings it back.
https://gitlab.manjaro.org/manjaro-arm/packages/core/linux/-/blob/4e603f4e710b1820e506e54a95c2e0a68b4765c3/0020-revert-fbcon-remove-soft-scrollback-code.patch