Repeater for the hurd console [PATCH]

[Marco Gerards]

Hi,

AS you might know, I am working on a repeater option for the Hurd
console.  This feature is required to run XFree while using the
console client.

This version of the patch uses libnetfs to create a directory in which
nodes like kbd and mouse can be found.  In the future I will write
support for an extra node which exports an interface for console
switching, which is required for XFree.

There is also a patch included for libcons because this patch adds
mouse support.  That means you can use the mouse in some curses
applications.  Nothing fancy like copy-paste support yet.

Here is an example how I use the console client with this patch
applied:

console -d vga -d pc_kbd --repeat=kbd -d pc_mouse --repeat=mouse -c /dev/cons 
/dev/vcs

If you have used one of my previous patches, you can see the --repeat
option has changed.  Now you only have to set up the name of the node,
instead of a path.  The console client has a new option, -c (long:
--consnode) which can be used to set the translator.

When using this example, you will get the following nodes after
starting the console client:

/dev/cons/kbd
/dev/cons/mouse

XFree can not find these nodes before you create a symlink to these
nodes.  For example:

ln -s /dev/cons/kbd /dev/kbd
ln -s /dev/cons/mouse /dev/mouse

After doing that and starting the console client like I showed earlier
you can start XFree.

You can find the two patches I mentioned here:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~mgerards/console_repeater.diff
http://www.xs4all.nl/~mgerards/libcons_repeater.diff

Please understand these patches are not fully finished yet.  But I
would appreciate any form of feedback, especially bug reports,
comments on how it works (even things like `--repeat' should be
`--foo') and comments on the code.

Before these patches will work you will need to apply two patches for
libnetfs.  I sent in one patch a few days ago.  I will send in the
other patch tomorrow.

Thanks,
Marco