After Years In The BSDs, TTY Keyboard Status Request Feature Being Proposed For Linux

For years most BSDs have supported a "TTY keyboard status request" to display status information at the terminal about the current foreground process and its CPU time consumed among other possible metrics. After being talked about in the past as a possible feature candidate, this functionality is now available in patch form to debate.

The SIGINFO capability on the BSDs is often exposed via the ^t combination and can be used for printing a one-line status message of the current process to the terminal. Different applications can end up exposing this in different manners. Those unfamiliar with the handling on the BSDs can see this message back from 2014 when the functionality was previously suggested.

Developer Arseny Maslennikov sent out a set of seven patches this week implementing this request for printing a short information line to the terminal and sending a Unix signal to the foreground process group, such as if wanting to implement a custom string. But besides the kernel bits, a patched stty and other user-space code is also needed.

The patches in their draft form can be found via this kernel mailing list thread though at least as of writing haven't been commented on by any other upstream developers on the prospects for such functionality making its way to the Linux kernel.