Hello,

I have a strange problem, I have a multi-screen setup using 4 monitors on 2 nvidia cards using xinerama. It works as well as this setup ever works with X and KDE4.2. However when I hit Alt-F1 to get the terminal all I get is 4 blank monitors. The terminal is there because I can login and do stuff, I just can't see what I am doing. Press alt-f7 and I'm back to X and the four monitors showing my extended desktop.

This isn't a huge problem but does anyone know what might be wrong?

Thanks.

Isn't that clt-alt-F1? or is that different in Suse?
cheers,
jdk

Yes you are right, thats what happens when I try to do to many things at once!

So what's the problem?

the problem is that when I press crtl-alt-f1 instead of getting the terminal the screens all go blank. The terminal is there but I can't see it.

what do you mean its there but you can't see it?
is the screen completely blank?
do you have a log in prompt?

by they way crtl-atl-f1 doesn't load a terminal, it switches you to a Virtual Console,
basically all your nvidia drivers won't be used because you are back to text mode.
one on your monitors will have the session displayed but the rest will most likely not
be receiving a signal.

I can't see the virtual console, it is there but all the screens are blank. I know it's there because I can login and do stuff even though I can't see what I am doing. Ctrl-alt-f7 will take me back to x.

is ctrl+alt+f2 the same?

yes all except ctrl-alt-f7, I can see the bootup if that is of any interest.

ok, so the screen is blank and you can't see what you type, you have to go back to the graphical login
and see what you did after the fact. have you tried other vc besides vc1 (ie ctrl-alt-f2, f3, ...)
you'd have 6 of them usually, unless you changed your /etc/inittab file. we'll on second thought
not all distros have an /etc/inittab file. ubuntu being one of them. under ubuntu the console setup
is in /etc/default/console-setup.

I mention this, because I want to know if the /dev/tty* are even active.

if I sound like I'm speaking down to you I apologizes, I spend my working days on the phone fixing peoples
computer problems and most of them no nothing about computers. I just don't like to assume things.
I want conformation of what you've already given me. by they way

will give you a large list of tty devices not all of them are active
the two files i mentioned are where the boot up scripts look to see which one
you want activated.

I don't know of a reason why you wouldn't have at least /dev/tty1 up and running. my first guess would
be its not the multi-head setup thats the problem, but something else. I could be completely wrong though
with any luck I'll be getting my extra monitors in today and sett them up, I'm also using nvidia,
if I come across anything that might relate to your situation I'll let you know. by the way.
what distro are you running? it shouldn't matter but directories and files could be laid out differently
from my distro (ubuntu) and yours.

ok, got my monitors hooked up, I see the problem you're having, I have it just, just plugging two monitors into a single nvidia video card, I haven't even messed with setting up any thing or changing anything, just plugged them in and rebooted, and nothing displays when I go to any of the vc, even though I can logging and go back to the graphic one and check to see that i am indead logged in under another vc, I'm inclide to think its a driver issue, not something you're doing wrong, I'll have to play around with it.

well, I don't have an explanation for you but I got my problem fixed
I simply reset my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file back to a clean slate
then rebooted and reconfigured it for nvidia drivers and that fixed
the problem. so you might try that.
even after I enabled twinview I can still use any of my vc

By chance, would you have your console set up to boot into a framebuffer mode instead of a normal text mode? I'd think that could be related to your issue if your bootup process shows fine, but disappears once you get into X.

If you have a framebuffer console configured, I'd try reverting it to normal text, and see if you still have the same issue.

As a matter of fact, a quick google comes up with this. It sounds like it may be a related issue.

This produces a long list of tty devices from tty to tty63 and some ttyS*.

At bootup vga=0x31a which I think is wright. That leaves something wrong with the xorg.conf file or maybe the nvidia drives. I am going to install the latest drivers and then have a look at the xorg file.

Philip

I believe the direction I was going isn't correct.

I think linuxchuck was right. its in frame buffering mode.