The NULL TTY Driver Makes It Into The Linux 5.2 Kernel

At first there was some concern over the practicality and use-cases for this driver, the NULL TTY driver has been merged for the Linux 5.2 kernel as part of the TTY/serial updates.

This NULL TTY driver is designed primarily for embedded use-cases where no console driver is present or desired. This NULL TTY driver is mainly to satisfy components like init scripts trying to access /dev/console so now it can spew to this dummy/null driver that in turn won't display anywhere -- all this driver does is discard the writes.

For some use-cases it's been fine linking /dev/console to /dev/null but that doesn't work out for scenarios expecting the setup to actually behave like a TTY.

This NULL TTY driver when enabled will be automatically loaded when no other console driver is present or if the kernel boots with the console=ttynull override.

Aside from this new driver, there isn't much to get excited about for the TTY/serial changes coming in Linux 5.2.