vt_kbd_con_start(9)

📦 version 7.3.1, in nixpkgs unstable

💖 vt_kbd_con_start(9) 💖

okay bestie, so this is a page from the Kernel API Manual — yes, the kernel, the big one — and the star of the show is vt_kbd_con_start. it's short, it's sweet, and it's doing exactly one job. let's get into it 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

vt_kbd_con_start — the keyboard side of console start, literally that's the whole thing 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

void vt_kbd_con_start (unsigned int console );

so it returns nothing (void) and takes one unsigned int named console. that's it, that's the vibe 💅

✨ ARGUMENTS ✨

  • console — the console. yep. that's the whole description. it's a console arg, it's a console. no notes 🙈

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so what does it do? it handles console start 🫶. but here's the tea — it's actually a thin wrapper for the VT layer, so that all the kbd knowledge can stay internal. cute little separation-of-concerns moment. we love encapsulation, we really do 👑

🔥 FIXME (and bestie, this one's important, don't skip it): we eventually need to hold the kbd lock here to protect the LED updating. we can't do it yet because fn_hold calls stop_tty and start_tty under the kbd_event_lock, while normal tty paths don't hold the lock. we probably need to split out an LED lock — but not during an -rc release! 😭 no cap, absolutely not touching that mid-rc, that's how you get main character energy in a bad way 💀

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

the kernel file lives at ./drivers/tty/vt/keyboard.c — go say hi to it 🧚

like, the whole keyboard.c friend group showed up. iconic 🌈

and that's the page!! sign-off time: this absolute legend of a manpage is brought to you by ./drivers/tty/vt, dated October 2026 📅💜 go forth and start those consoles, bestie ⭐

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