[gpm]Feature request

[Alessandro Rubini]

> I have an idea that would be cool for a new feature. I have a console for my
> router displaying data constantly. I frequently want to copy/paste that data
> onto my desktop on my workstation.

Then just send your log data through the network, and collect it elsewhere.
 
> What would be cool would be if i could run gpm on the router, but
> instead of having it read from a real physical mouse on that
> machine, have it read from a named pipe I create.

This is not difficult. I've been piping mouse data through the net for
quite a while, since I needed the local serial port for other tasks,
the mouse was connected to a remote serial port. Not an issue.

> Then have a program on my desktop ship data out to appear
> on that named pipe. Ideally something like x2x that emulates having more
> desktop real estate off the edge of the desktop.

This _is_ an issue. You need X to be aware of all of this. It's not a
well-defined problem space, at least as you describe it, and even if
you define the problem in a clean way, it's not trivial at all to
implement.  You'll need to dig in X internals, and change some of it,
probably making it non-portable.

> That way I could transparently move the mouse off the edge of my X11 desktop
> on my workstation, onto the gpm space on the console of the router.
> Implementing copy/paste would the next step.

Best is using an xterm or equivalent tool that locally tracks log
messages received via TCP or UDP. I personally tendo to UDP logs to
the broadcast address when I need to track them over the lan.

/alessandro
-- 
Alessandro Rubini, free software specialist.
Device drivers, embedded systems, courses.
http://ar.linux.it/