catching things written to terminals

[Peter Oliver <p d oliver mavit freeserve co uk>]

Traditionally, Unix users and the system itself have been able to
communicate by writing messages directly to a terminal.  Syslog, wall (and
hence shutdown), write, and talk all do this.  Unfortunately, this is a
bit iffy under X11 because you may well not have any terminals open, or
you may have a lot of other things going on and not notice the message
until it is too late.

Perhaps some part of Gnome (the panel, maybe?) should quietly open a tty
to listen for such messages, which could then be passed to the user
somehow.  If a dialogue box seems too obtrusive, perhaps an sound could play
and an icon could appear in the notification area.

-- 
Peter Oliver