blinking cursor

[nadir]

Is there a way to disable the blinking of the cursor when being in a login-terminal?
And one which works.
I am crawling through how-to's, setting framebuffers, editing bashrc, editing sysfs.conf editing all kind of grub-files and what not. I need a way which works, and in less then a week (kinda cursor_blink=NO). If there ain't such a way let me know and i will give up on it.
This is what i want:
_
and i want it to be white. But then you will not be able to see it:
_
See?

[traveler]

Got me buddy.
You don't boot to a login manager?
Hardcore.

[MeanDean]

talking about on a tty....like ctrl+alt+f2

probably want to edit /etc/inittab

I know you can do colors and stuff....let me play with it for a minute and see what I can come up with...

[MeanDean]

I cant get it to stop blinking but a line in /etc/inittab like so would be my guess at it...for tty3 obviously

Code: Select all

3:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -I `setterm -blink off -foreground white` 38400 tty3

man setterm might be useful to you

You might also consider other gettys and see if they might have the configuration you desire.

[nadir]

I cant get it to stop blinking but a line in /etc/inittab like so would be my guess at it...for tty3 obviously

Code: Select all

3:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -I `setterm -blink off -foreground white` 38400 tty3

man setterm might be useful to you

You might also consider other gettys and see if they might have the configuration you desire.

Not too bad. Never heard of setterm before.
Ok:
Adding that to /etc/inittab didn't work.
So i tried it from the cli: nothing. blink, blink, blink.
So i tried: setterm -cursor off.
That does work. Good.

Now the problem is the following (besides that no cursor at all is difficult too):
If i open a file with vim, which i always do in cli, the blinking comes back. It start in vim, i close vim and the terminal cursor blinks too.
I already had that result after editing my .bashrc with:

Code: Select all

# blinking cursor disabled
echo -e '\033[?17;0;127c'

Works fine (though it is a block-cursor, why the heck does no one want a no-blinking standard cursor. Does it need to be red, block or blinking?). I open a file with vim and voila: blink, blink.

The site http://www.jurta.org/en/prog/noblink describes for emacs, gvim and all other apps how to disable the blinking cursor, but not for vim. I went to the vim site: same problem ( i didn't search that long, but only found it for gvim).

I will try to figure out more by "man setterm" tomorrow.

[dbbolton]

It appears from :help blink that the only options pertain to X. Perhaps Vim is resetting the software cursor to its own value. It really seems like an uphill battle at this point.

My suggestion: write a wicked patch for drivers/char/vt.c or include/linux/console-struct.h

[nadir]

It appears from :help blink that the only options pertain to X. Perhaps Vim is resetting the software cursor to its own value. It really seems like an uphill battle at this point.

My suggestion: write a wicked patch for drivers/char/vt.c or include/linux/console-struct.h

Thanks.
I am at the problem for 3 days now, and i think i am tired of it (i have assumed it was a five-minute thing).

Writing a patch is beyond me.
I am not sure bout the terminology (example: i use login-terminal. For me it is what i see after booting. Or if i hit Alt+F2. But i don't know if it is the correct word). Makes it difficult too.


I know you speak a bit of German. Here is my German thread (where it gets from the odd to the crazy to the insane, as long one thinks it is a five-minute thing):
http://debianforum.de/forum/viewtopic.p ... 04&start=0
(else: the commands are the same in both languages, and there is google-translate too)

Well: another defeat.
Good to be reminded how little one knows.

[dbbolton]

I am not sure bout the terminology (example: i use login-terminal. For me it is what i see after booting. Or if i hit Alt+F2. But i don't know if it is the correct word). Makes it difficult too.

I would call it the linux console ( echo $TERM ) or a tty (teletype) console.

I know you speak a bit of German. Here is my German thread (where it gets from the odd to the crazy to the insane, as long one thinks it is a five-minute thing):
http://debianforum.de/forum/viewtopic.p ... 04&start=0
(else: the commands are the same in both languages, and there is google-translate too)

It seems like a lot of the same-- indirect suggestions that don't produce the desired result. I'm no kernel expert, but I don't think it has anything to do with which framebuffer driver you use (and the results in that thread seem to suggest the same).

Well: another defeat.
Good to be reminded how little one knows.

You might have better luck if you look in a place where there are some kernel experts, like the LKML, or even Debian's. I would tentatively suggest #linux on freenode, but even there one finds a good deal of "HELP FLASH DON'T WORK IN YUBUNTU"-type questions. ##kernel might be helpful too.

[nadir]

little update.
I am stuck to the problem with vim
(though if i do :help cursor ; i get a cursor on off...)
It might be it has got something to do with ncurses (?).

I am fiddling with Deans suggestion about setterm. It doesn't solve the problem, but it sure is a bit of fun (edited /etc/issue during my trials, playing with colors...).
I set an "alias co=setterm -cursor off -store". That way i may disable the cursor -completely- after i close vim. Not perfect, but a tiny step.

I often find hints to termcap, but the man is difficult.
I didn't ask where dbbolton suggested to ask, cause i am not sure how to put the question (and i expect an answer like " ... framebuffer... " or " .... termcap ... " of which i know a bit less than nothing.

short: setterm is fun.
Does somone know if i really need a framebuffer for that?
Or has it got to do with ncurses? Or with both?
If i go for vim online i always end in the gvim-wiki. Ain't there a vim-wiki?

[nadir]

Another update, after another few hours wasted with that crap.

At the page from above:
http://www.jurta.org/en/prog/noblink
i found the idea to patch the kernel. I downloaded the patch, but couldn't even apply it ( i did never patch a kernel before, that might have been the problem).
I ran "make menuconfig", but would not find anything cursor related neither.

Once in a bad mood anyway i did:
$ infocmp linux > linux-term-orig
$ infocmp linux > linux-term-edited
searched for "cnorm" and "cvvis" and changed it to: \E[?17;0;64c and did: tic linux-term-edited
which resulted in vi being useless (when i try to enter something it uses: \E[?17;0;64c . Well: lol).
So i restored linux-term-orig.
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CursorOnLinuxConsole

In the middle of nowhere i found a bug-report i can't find anymore (a Debian bug-report).
He says it is a waste to spend so much time on configuring the cursor, and i agree.
Ok, i found it:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=457885

It makes me wonder that i find so little about it, cause it is outstanding annoying
(and it is of absolutely no use at all, at least for me).