Links browser requires suid in VGA mode

i disagree, but it's described in README.Debian in the docs.

Actually the solution given in README.Debian is not strictly necessary, and is probably a Bad Idea.

You can do something like this:

In

/etc/udev/rules.d/40-permissions.rules

 (For example, setting user "foo" as a member of group "tty" and
 making devices writable by that group as follows:

 KERNEL=="mice" GROUP="tty", MODE="0660"
 KERNEL=="tty[0-9]*" GROUP="tty", MODE="0660"
 KERNEL=="fb0" GROUP="tty", MODE="0660" )

Unfortunately, although this enables links2 -g with directfb *from a command prompt*, it will still
fail when called *from a bash script* . This is an issue if for example you have set up a menu using bash
along the lines of

read -s -n 1
      case $REPLY in
                  1)
                   links2 -g http://google.com
                   menu
                   ;;
                   2)
                   elinks http://google.com
                   menu
. ;;
                    *)
                    menu
                    ;;
esac

Where "menu" is a function, and so on.

links2 -g -driver fb <some_url_here>

*will* run from such a script/menu , but the mouse loses the directfb feature of enabling the scroll wheel,
and the "fb" driver is slow, with the mouse pointer far less responsive.

A solution to the "Won't run from a script" issue would be appreciated, if such a solution exists...
I need this for a live CD without X that uses menus etc....

Please ignore the obvious syntax error in the "case" statement of my comment above :)

I attach a hack used in conjunction with the comments and code above.

This scriptlet enables 'xlinks2' (links2 -g) to run from a script (in my case normally from bash menus), without X, with directfb, and without using suid root on the links2 binary.

It requires having the user as a member of the group used as above. (Say tty, or video).
In Ubuntu Hardy for some reason the permissions on /dev/tty0 are changed during boot, presumably by configuration changes in some package that I have not identified. A work-around for this is to place this in /etc/rc.local :

chown root:video /dev/tty0 (if the group chosen is 'video')

The script uses a background loop and job control to return the user to the parent menu on quit from xlinks2.

It would be wonderful if this program worked in graphics mode. I run it and it says "graphics not enabled when compiling". I tried adding libs but finally got stuck when it said libvga needed and we have libvga installed. This is a great program. Lightning fast.

lightning fast indeed, but without css. i switched to chromium-browser as fast but with beautiful webkit rendering...

Lightning fast is chromium-browser - but link2 -g works in graphics mode in
the terminal.

Try that with chromium.

On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 9:44 AM, Gürkan Sengün <email address hidden> wrote:

> lightning fast indeed, but without css. i switched to chromium-browser
> as fast but with beautiful webkit rendering...
>
> --
> Links browser requires suid in VGA mode
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/234717
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “links2” package in Ubuntu: New
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: links2
>
> Running "links2 -g" in the Linux console fails with the error message
> "svgalib: cannot get I/O permissions". As I understand, this is because
> programs that use vgalib require suid privileges. The file should be given
> suid privileges:
>
> sudo u+s $(which links2)
>
> The file should have these privileges by default - that should be done by
> the distribution.
>
> Description: Ubuntu 7.04
> Release: 7.04
>
> links2 2.1pre26-4build1
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/links2/+bug/234717/+subscribe
>

A fix has been uploaded to Debian (as 2.7-2) by removing SVGA (svgalib/libsvga) support completely, as svgalib is about to be removed from Debian and likely from Ubuntu, too.

This bug was fixed in the package links2 - 2.7-2ubuntu1

---------------
links2 (2.7-2ubuntu1) saucy; urgency=low

  * Resynchronise with Debian (LP: #234717). Remaining changes:
    - Build-depend on libtiff-dev rather than libtiff4-dev.
 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:40:35 +0100