Re: virtual terminals
On Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 11:27:44PM -0800, Alexander Poquet wrote:
> hey folks.
>
> i was just wondering about virtual terms -- is there an easy way to change
> how many there are? debian seems to default at 6 running getty, and X
> opens up 7. presumably i can use as many as 12? how does this work?
> is it as simple as running getty from init, or is there a kernel definition
> somewhere that specifies how many i can have, or a little of both?
>
> is there some documentation on the subject somewhere?
>
> --
> Alexander Poquet | We leave the obvious generalizations to the
> atpoquet@ucdavis.edu | reader. -- Israel Herstein
> Use of PGP preferable in reply | Use Linux!
I think up until kernel 1.1.54 you had to recompile to change the number
of virtual consoles. Now you can just add a line in /etc/inittab:
8:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty8
This will give you another console on cntrl-alt-f8 after a reboot. Be
careful using tty7 to avoid an X conflict--I don't know what would
happen if getty and X both tried to use the same device. There's a huge
number of tty's available (try ls /dev/tty*), but I suppose you're limited
to 12, one for each of the F keys.
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