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The scrollback buffer is quite short in Linux consoles, and the scrollback buffer is not stored on system RAM, but VGA RAM. The buffer is also lost on switching ttys. There was a kernel patch to fix this, but not yet accepted.
You can change the size of the scrollback buffer by recompiling the kernel with some options: http://gradusdesicus.blogspot.com.au/2009/01/increasing-scrollback-buffer-in-tty.html
You can read what is currently on the screen of a tty by reading /dev/vcs
. The
/dev/vcs
refers to the current tty on the screen, but there's also /dev/vcs1
and /dev/vcs2
referring to tty1
and tty2
.
Those special files do not contain the scrollback buffer.
Short and simple, thanks!