Adam Williamson <awilliam(a)redhat.com> writes:
> > - don't auto-page;
>
> yes; that's the best solution. The auto-pager is perhaps the most
> annoying feature of systemd. I have no problem in scrolling back some
> pages in my terminal with shift-pgup, but having a status request block
> (plain 'systemctl' or 'journalctl' request a status) is just broken.
I don't really look at it that way. Let's see, how to put it...
Okay, so with the old system, I don't recall *ever* doing 'cat
/var/log/messages'.
It depends on the usecase. 'cat' is an option when system does not run for
a long time yet or the different message types are filtered (e.g. into
/var/log/secure). Else:
tail -n200 /var/log/messages
and when I see that information are too difficulty structured to find
the wanted piece at the first glance:
<up> | less --> perhaps '-S' within less
This workflow is not possible with journalctl anymore.
It might not be the most efficient way to do things, but the '<up> |
less' part works for a lot of other use cases too so that I do not have
to remember which options are required by program A and which by program
B to page the output.
Often, I know exactly what I want to do next after the 'tail -n200' (or
a 'chkconfig --list') and start typing the next command while screen is
filled with output. This does not work with systemd anymore because
pager is entered.
Did/do you usually less /var/log/messages? Or did you usually cat it?
fwiw, I develop for embedded systems (which are using systemd). Showing
complete log with 'journalctl' (and SYSTEMD_PAGER=) (and formerly 'cat
/var/log/messages' or 'logread') is not uncommon in this usecase.
> Or, do you want that e.g. the 'ls -l' output gets
auto-paged?
Thinking about this case, when I'm doing an ls -l which I know will be
long, I usually wind up trying to order it in such a way that what I
want to see will be at the bottom (classically, ls -ltr)...that doesn't
really work with journals. How about you?
filters like 'll -tr' or 'll -Sr' are efficient and not uncommon, indeed.
But I use also the plain 'll' very often to get an overview.
But I never want 'll' to be auto-paged; regardless whether it displays 1
or 1000 lines.
Enrico