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⇱ KMSCON Continues Improving For VT Terminal Emulator In User-Space - Phoronix


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KMSCON Continues Improving For VT Terminal Emulator In User-Space

Written by Michael Larabel in Free Software on 22 April 2026 at 10:26 AM EDT. 25 Comments
KMSCON 9.3.4 is out today for this virtual terminal (VT) emulator in user-space that runs atop the Linux DRM/KMS APIs for those wanting to enjoy a CONFIG_VT=n Linux kernel experience.

Later this year Fedora 45 might ship with KMSCON as its default VT console. We are nearing a point where it's finally becoming more viable to disable the built-in kernel VT -- something that has been talked about for more than a decade. GNOME OS is also already using KMSCON by default.

With today's KMSCON 9.3.4 release it now defaults to using FreeType rather than Pango, for multi-monitor setups there is an option to only use the largest monitor output, the terminal is now always centered on the screen, fixing some memory safety and undefined behavior bugs, hardware cursor plane support, an improved glyph cache, hardware cursor rotation support, and a variety of other improvements. KMSCON also finally handles the bell and keyboard LEDs on systems.

KMSCON appears to be maturing rather well and becoming increasingly viable for replacing the in-kernel VT.

Downloads and all the details on the new KMSCON 9.3.4 feature release via GitHub.

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.