> Is there any reason not to make this a tunable, and imposing a limit of 12
> (is 12 a reasonable value)? We could get rid of WSDISPLAY_DEFAULTSCREENS and
> introduce WSDISPLAY_MAXSCREENS. I don't know whether this makes sense for
> other hardware, but on a i386 with a regular PC keyboard attached, it
> does. 

I have no problem with raising the hard limit on screens to 12, because it
should be possible to configure all twelve function keys for screens. Just
be sure you check that those screens are actually accessible by the code
that deals with fkeys (in console and in X).

However, I don't think you should kill WSDISPLAY_DEFAULTSCREENS. That is
the number of screens allocated at bootup time; they are not reconfigurable.
Plus they chew up memory -- and the 1.5 i386 GENERIC kernel is already bloat
city. Please don't make it worse without good reason.

Additional screens between WSDISPLAY_DEFAULTSCREENS and the hard limit are
dynamically configurable by userland programs, and allow arbitrary fonts to
be loaded for them (so you can get 80x50 displays and so on). Further, they
are only allocated if they are used; they don't contribute to kernel bloat.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ best.com