Lost my Ctrl-Alt-Fx
 

After upgrading Sarge to KDE 3.4 and updating about 300 packages (many from unstable) I can no longer usr Ctrl-Alt-Fx to switch to tty mode when KDE is running. The key combos work OK if I boot to text mode.

I found some references to keymap but could not understand what I had to do.

Help appreciated (as usual). Thanks.

Sorry if obvious, but do you really mean kde or kdm? I've noticed that kdm locks the ttys until kde is fully running.

Obvious it's not. I may be missing something here. KDM loads during boot. That's the graphics manager right? Then the GUI comes up and calls itself KDE 3.4.

Everything then run normally (for a given value of "normally", bearing in mind that we are dealing with computers here :)

Am I missing out on something?

right, so kdm is the login manager where you type username and password. This seems to lock the ttys until kde has started, then you can hit ctrl-alt-fn. I added a ConsoleTTYs line to /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc so the general section now looks like:

[General]
ConfigVersion=2.1
PidFile=/var/run/kdm.pid
ServerVTs=-7
Xservers=/etc/kde3/kdm/Xservers
ConsoleTTYs=tty1,tty2,tty3,tty4,tty5,tty6

This gives an option "Console login" to the kdm "menu"-button, but for some reason it goes back to gui if the console is inactive for a minute :|

If you get no ttys even when kde is fully running you might want to check that the gettys are running in the first place:
ps fax|grep getty
6155 tty2 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty2
6156 tty3 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3
6157 tty4 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty4
6158 tty5 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty5
15672 tty1 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty1

Next have a look at /etc/inittab . There you set the gettys with lines like:
1:12345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6

The 12345 and 2345 define on which runlevels they are active. If at the top of the same file in the line:
# The default runlevel.
id:5:initdefault:
you also have 5, the gettys should also have a 5 in them.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Everything matches what you posted except that I do not have
Nor does the file /etc/kde3/kdm/Xservers exist. Could this be the problem?

Other people seem to have this problem, for example:

http://www.slackplanet.org/index.php?topic=734.msg4861

but nothing there helped either.

I don't see how that file could affect vt's. Have you tried another login manager just to check if kdm is at fault?
You probably have xdm installed but kdm as default. I don't know on which runlevels you want x running but you can probably decide that. This will switch to xdm on bootup:
update-rc.d -f kdm remove
update-rc.d xdm start 99 5 . stop 01 0 1 2 3 4 6 .
You can check what you have now with: ls -l /etc/rc[0-6].d|grep [gkx]dm

If you want to try Xservers file this is the only uncommented line there:
:0 local@tty1 /usr/X11R6/bin/X -br -nolisten tcp vt7

EDIT:
Did a google and it's possibly your xkbd setting. Have a look here http://lists.debian.org/debian-x/2005/09/msg00446.html

I've been researching xkbd and discovered that I do not have an /etc/sysconfig/ directory, although a configuration howto on the Debian website refers to it.

This might be a topic for a new post, I thought sysconfig was an integral pert of any distribution.

I don't have /etc/sysconfig either on a sarge box.
Which howto? Or rather post the relevant part.

Debian Configuration Howto, section 2.3:

I cannot find any keyboard files!

That you can do by looking for a suitable keymap in /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/
I install a finnish one with: install-keymap fi-latin1.kmap.gz
But you set it within x from xorg.conf or XF86Config or XF86Config-4 depending on what you use.

From my xorg.conf:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "fi-latin1"
EndSection

XF86Config-4:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "fi-latin1"
EndSection

As you can see, only the driver differs.

I've spent a lot of time playing with this - learning a lot in the process - and essentally discovered this:

If I do not load a keymap then Ctrl-Alt-Fx, Ctrl-Alt-+/- work as advertised. However I get what I think is a US keyboard where "|" and "\" come out as ">" and "<" (the key next to the left hand shift).

Loading any other keymap including fi-latin disables Ctrl-Alt-Fx. However Ctrl-Alt-Backspace (Kill X) always works.

In xorg.conf I have

and I've also played with

As far as I can tell I have tried all possible combinations, disabling and enabling combinations of the above.

It looks like my problem is linked to the presence of XkbLayout, which is why I tried using HandleSpecialKeys.

So near, yet so far! Incidentally if I boot into text mode, or kill the X Server, then Ctrl-Alt-Fx work just fine.

Suggestions appreciated. Thanks

This is strange. Run "xev" in a konsole under kde, press one by one, ctrl, alt and F1 and see if they are mapped correctly.
If you want some more reading, try this /usr/share/doc/x11-common/FAQ.xhtml

Thought I should add that I am having the exact same problem on a testing/unstable box and have had the problem since xfree86 and continue to have it with xorg. Also I am using GDM as my login manager and Gnome as my DE.

SOLVED IT!!!
 

I found out that KDE believed that I had a US layout Keyboard not a UK one. Or at least that's what the KDE Control Centre showed.

I changed it and can now switch to alternate TTYs.

Looks like KDE doesn't check what Linux has installed when it installs.

Thanks mahuyl for the help. Good luck to those who are still struggling.