Terminal change (Ctrl+Alt+F1 to F7) problem
 

hi

on my debian sarge install i did a while ago (and still have installed) i cannot switch the Terminals with Ctrl+Alt+F* like normal. When I am in grafic environment i can do Ctrl+Alt+F1 to go to a text based terminal, but from there i cannot get back (ctrl+alt+f7) nor to another text-based terminal (i.e. ctrl+alt+f2).
on an other pc where i installed sarge with the newer beta installer this works fine. but i dont really know if its got something to do with the installer. it cannot be the pc, because the one with this problem didnt have it under red hat.

is this some sort of setting i can change in a config file to get my full terminal functionality?

thanks

stefan

From the text console, you can press Alt+Function-key to switch between terminals. I understand that Ctrl+Alt+… doesn't always work on some configurations.

Note that you do need Ctrl+Alt to switch from an X server to another VT (X steals and remaps the raw keyboard events).

You can also use the chvt command to switch terminals, as well as openvt to start a process on a different terminal (provided it doesn't have a login; generally this means 8 or above). You can also switch to terminals 13 and above using Shift+Alt+Function-key.

cool, that works great.
but what do you mean with Alt + function-key to switch between terminal? would this mean Alt+F2 to go from VT1 to VT2? that doesnt work here..
ah.. yes i have seen in the man page of chvt that it could be alt+F*.
still, this doesnt work.

since now i know chvt this isnt a big problem, but anyway, can i change this somewhere? so that the system catches "ctrl-alt-f7" as "chvt 7"?

thank you
stefan

the xserver will bind to the first free vt as default. since 1 till 6 are mostly configured as terminal logins it's vt7. they are configured in /etc/inittab.

sl mritch.

looking at /etc/inittab it seems to me that I can only configure the text-based VT's but not the key combination that activates them. Am I right?

stefan

Hi.

I can switch betwen my text-based VT with Ctrl+Alt+F1-6, but only the first X VT actually works. When I try to switch to another X terminal (with Ctrl+Alt or chvt, e.g. Ctrl+Alt+F8), it just shows me a blank screen. Then, I can only go back to the default X terminal with Ctrl-Alt-F7.

I have the NVidia driver installed in my system. Could it be that the problem?

How can I get that to work?

yep, you are. switching should work with alt+funktion in terminal mode and srtg+alt+funktion between terminal and x mode. afaik you can bind the xserver to a specific vt with an statoption - look at the various manpages 'bout the x system for that.
i didn't came across a similar prob with these keys so i don't know whats wrong here. also i've no idea where these things are configured...have a look into inittab's and keyboard/keymap related manpages.

sl mritch.

I don't know how you change the key-bindings that switch between VTs; I suspect that they are hard-coded as Alt+F1 etc. In which case, you probably have the wrong keyboard type selected; I don't know how you change this.

However, if pressing Alt+F2 through Alt+F6 gives you a blank screen, then this is a different problem entirely. The virtual terminals exist but there's no login program (getty program) running on these terminals.

This is controlled by the /etc/inittab file, usually with lines like this:See the inittab and getty, agetty and mingetty manpages for more.

i dont have blank screens. the key combinations just dont work except for the first VT. it doesnt even work for the seventh terminal where x runs..
I think i just have to use the chvt command for now.

thanks for the help

stefan