Kmscon

Kmscon is a virtual console which runs in userspace and intends to replace the Linux console, a terminal built into the Linux kernel. Kmscon uses the KMS driver for its output, it is multiseat-capable, and supports internationalized keyboard input and UTF-8 terminal output. The input support is implemented using X keyboard extension (XKB). Development of Kmscon stopped in March 2015. There is a new project called systemd-consoled, but this project was also later dropped in July 2015.

Kmscon supports printing the full set of Unicode glyphs and is not limited by console encoding as the Linux console. While the only hard dependency is udev, kmscon can optionally be compiled to use Mesa for hardware acceleration of the console, and the pango library for improved font rendering.

The adoption of XKB for input allows kmscon to accept the full range of available keyboard layouts for the X.Org Server and Wayland compositors for input and makes it possible to use the same layout both in graphical environment and in terminal.

The VT system in the Linux kernel dates to 1993 and does not implement out-of-the-box multiseat support. It supports up to 63 VTs, but only one VT can be active at any given time. This necessitates additional steps to configure multiseat support. kmscon/systemd-consoled will enable multiseat out-of-the-box.

If one seat's display server is running on VT 7 and another seat's display server is running on VT 8, then only one of these two seats can be used at a time. To use the other seat, a VT switch must be initiated.