Using kmscon as a regular user ------------------------------ As shipped, kmscon only works for root. If you want to be able to run it as a normal user, you could make it setuid root (not recommended). A better solution: setcap cap_sys_tty_config,cap_sys_admin=ep /usr/bin/kmscon See capabilities(7) and http://www.slackbuilds.org/caps/ for more info on capabilities. When running as a normal user, you probably also want to add "--login -- /bin/bash -i" on the kmscon command line (or the equivalent, in /etc/kmscon/kmscon.conf). Using kmscon as a console replacement ------------------------------------- kmscon has much better support for fonts and Unicode/UTF-8 than the Linux framebuffer console. If you want to use kmscon for all your console logins, edit /etc/inittab and replace the /sbin/agetty lines (around line 50 on Slack 14.1) with: c1:12345:respawn:/usr/bin/kmscon --vt /dev/tty1 c2:12345:respawn:/usr/bin/kmscon --vt /dev/tty2 c3:12345:respawn:/usr/bin/kmscon --vt /dev/tty3 c4:12345:respawn:/usr/bin/kmscon --vt /dev/tty4 c5:12345:respawn:/usr/bin/kmscon --vt /dev/tty5 c6:12345:respawn:/usr/bin/kmscon --vt /dev/tty6 You might also want to edit /etc/kmscon/kmscon.conf and uncomment the line beginning with 'login=/sbin/agetty ...'. If you're in the habit of logging in as root, you'll want to edit /etc/securetty and uncomment the lines for pts/0 through pts/7. This is only needed for actual root logins (su and sudo will work fine without it). After making your edits, "init q" followed by "killall agetty" will fire up the new kmscon login prompts (alternatively, you can reboot). There's no need to use setcap if you're running kmscon from /etc/inittab, since it will always run as root. Misc ---- You'll almost certainly want to use a UTF-8 locale with kmscon. Normally this is set in /etc/profile.d/lang.sh (but you could also do it in your your ~/.bash_profile or such, if you like). When using kmscon, you'll have to use ctrl-alt-F# to switch consoles. Also try ctrl-plus and ctrl-minus (for zooming). You won't be able to run links in framebuffer mode (with "links -g -driver fb") from within a kmscon session. startx will work normally from kmscon. kmscon has *no* support for gpm, or the mouse in general. There's no way to select or paste text with the mouse, and no way to use the mouse in mouse-aware textmode applications like links. svgalib applications are highly unlikely to work from within kmscon. mplayer's framebuffer support (-vo fbdev or -vo fbdev2) doesn't work from within kmscon. Japanese man pages render beautifully with kmscon. Install man-db and man-pages-ja, and set LANG="ja_JP.UTF-8" in /etc/profile.d/lang.sh.