david@david-mb ~/dev/kmscon $ ls -la
total 3424
drwxr-xr-x 12 david david    4096 Oct 29 11:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 30 david david    4096 Oct 29 09:33 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 david david   51900 Oct 29 11:02 aclocal.m4
-rwxr-xr-x  1 david david     113 Dec  1  2012 autogen.sh
drwxr-xr-x  2 david david    4096 Oct 29 11:02 autom4te.cache
drwxr-xr-x  2 david david    4096 Oct 29 11:02 build-aux
-rw-r--r--  1 david david    4082 Oct 29 11:02 config.h
-rw-r--r--  1 david david    3718 Oct 29 11:02 config.h.in
-rw-r--r--  1 david david   49283 Oct 29 11:02 config.log
-rwxr-xr-x  1 david david   64743 Oct 29 11:02 config.status
-rwxr-xr-x  1 david david  546241 Oct 29 11:02 configure
-rw-r--r--  1 david david   25163 Oct 29 10:52 configure.ac
-rw-r--r--  1 david david    6759 May 10 17:16 COPYING
drwxr-xr-x  3 david david    4096 Oct 29 10:20 docs
drwxr-xr-x  4 david david    4096 Oct 29 11:14 external
drwxr-xr-x  2 david david    4096 May 10 17:16 fblog
-rwxr-xr-x  1 david david   22043 Oct 29 11:14 genshader
-rwxr-xr-x  1 david david   23290 Oct 29 11:14 genunifont
drwxr-xr-x  8 david david    4096 Oct 29 11:12 .git
-rw-r--r--  1 david david     544 Oct 29 09:41 .gitignore
-rwxr-xr-x  1 david david 1009988 Oct 29 11:14 kmscon
-rw-r--r--  1 david david  950068 Oct 29 11:12 kmscon-8.tar.xz
-rw-r--r--  1 david david     871 Oct 29 11:14 libeloop.la
drwxr-xr-x  2 david david    4096 Oct 29 11:14 .libs
-rw-r--r--  1 david david     865 Oct 29 11:14 libshl.la
-rwxr-xr-x  1 david david  293012 Oct 29 11:02 libtool
-rw-r--r--  1 david david     938 Oct 29 11:14 libuterm.la
drwxr-xr-x  2 david david    4096 Oct 29 11:02 m4
-rw-r--r--  1 david david  136680 Oct 29 11:02 Makefile
-rw-r--r--  1 david david   14674 Oct 29 10:33 Makefile.am
-rw-r--r--  1 david david  154345 Oct 29 11:02 Makefile.in
-rw-r--r--  1 david david       0 Oct 29 11:14 .man_fixup
-rw-r--r--  1 david david     949 Oct 29 11:14 mod-bbulk.la
-rw-r--r--  1 david david     958 Oct 29 11:14 mod-gltex.la
-rw-r--r--  1 david david    1041 Oct 29 11:14 mod-pango.la
-rw-r--r--  1 david david     963 Oct 29 11:14 mod-unifont.la
-rw-r--r--  1 david david   12143 Oct 29 11:01 NEWS
-rw-r--r--  1 david david    4695 Oct 29 10:52 README
drwxr-xr-x  4 david david   16384 Oct 29 11:14 src
-rw-r--r--  1 david david      23 Oct 29 11:02 stamp-h1
drwxr-xr-x  3 david david    4096 Oct 29 11:02 tests
david@david-mb ~/dev/kmscon $

KMS/DRM based System Console

kmscon is a system console for linux. It does not depend on any graphics-server on your system (like X.org), but instead provides a raw console layer that can be used independently. It can replace the linux kernel console entirely but was designed to work well side-by-side, too. Even though initially targeted at providing internationalization to the system-console, it has grown into a fully modularized console layer including features like multi-head support, internationalized font rendering, XKB-compatible keyboard handling, hardware-accelerated graphics access and more.

Several sub-projects emerged out of kmscon. Have a look at:

Why the name?

kmscon uses the Direct-Rendering-Manager (DRM) of the linux kernel to access graphics devices. The API that performs mode-setting on displays/monitors is called Kernel-Mode-Setting (KMS). Hence its name kmscon. Today, kmscon can also make use of other graphics-APIs. But these were mainly introduced for backwards-compatibility. KMS/DRM is the way to go!

Mailing Lists:

Bug Reports:

Download:

Git:

Distribution Packages: