Problems with session switching
I'm having problems switching between sessions.
Back when I used PCLinuxOS on this machine, all the function keys from F1 to F6 (with Ctrl and Alt held down, obviously) gave me access to terminal sessions. I found them quite useful for running stuff that I wanted to keep on going even if I had to shut down my X (KDE/GNOME) session. I also used the F7 and F8 keys to switch between X sessions. I've just dumped PCLinuxOS for Ubuntu Gutsy, and spent some time installing lots of software and configuring it just the way I like it. But then I some point I must have installed something weird or somehow altered some configuration file, because session switching doesn't work. I'm 99% sure that it worked on the fresh Ubuntu installation. It's almost certainly something I've done. Perhaps it was to do with trying out GDM, KDM, XDM and WDM. If I try to switch to tty1 (say), I get an unresponsive black screen with a blinking cursor. Sometimes it's not possible to get back to the X session. When that happens, I get a screen which is blank apart from the mouse pointer, which I can move. At that point, only a hard reset will get me out of it. ------- I would appreciate it very much if someone could help me solve this for myself. It would be great if you could point me towards some clear documentation explaining what processes and configuration files govern the spawning of sessions and the switching between them. Thanks. |
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What *dm are you running now? |
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X sessions are started in /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom For example: To have four consoles (F1-F4) and three X sessions (F5-F7) at startup you have to remove /etc/event.d/tty5 and /etc/event.d/tty6 and then in /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom under the [daemon] section set FirstVT=5 then under the [servers] section tell GDM what servers to run on which display [servers] 0=Standard 1=Standard 2=Standard This will run 3 Standard servers beginning with F5 (ie Ctrl+Alt+F5 will open display 0, Ctrl+Alt+F6 display, 1 etc) Look in /etc/gdm/gdm.conf for details (but don't edit it, edit gdm.conf-custom) |
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Looking at that file right now, I can see that the vga number is specified in Ubuntu's "automagic" section, which I don't really understand because PCLinuxOS's menu.lst was much more straightforward. Here's the file: Code:
# Splashimage line added by kubuntu-grub-splashimages package Quote:
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The vga=792 kernel option in your /boot/grub/menu.lst is why you aren't seeing the consoles. Refer to my HOWTO on how to fix it.
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I don't know much about Ubuntu, but some distros disable console ttys when running on graphical runlevel(mostly 4 or 5). Try to change the default runlevel to 3 in /etc/inittab and you should be able to log in to terminal console after reboot. Or fireup a terminal and log in as root and run telinit 3 to go to level 3. You should get terminals up. That wont solve your issue of having consoles 1-6 open while running X , but atleast you will know if something is wrong with your ttys.
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I've just tried changing the second occurrence of it (out of the automagic section), and all it did was change the size of the boot splash. Everything was the same as before by the time it got to GDM. I also implemented everything in the how-to, and all it did was turn the black screen with a blinking cursor into a messed-up screen with many coloured horizontal lines. |
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I've typed "telinit 3" into Konsole as root, and nothing at all happened. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runlevel, Debian-based systems don't have the same runlevels as other distros, and Ubuntu in particular is very different. |
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If so, than you should change to a less demanding video mode. Perhaps a 16 or 15-bit mode. If that doesn't work, reboot, and at the GRUB menu edit the entry you want to boot, and replace vga=whatever with vga=ask and boot. This will give you a menu with available video modes to choose from. It's a good idea to select 'scan' instead of the video modes and the system will scan for supported modes and give you a menu to choose a video mode. Once you found a mode you like edit GRUB's menu.lst with the video mode you have chosen. BTW do you use a custom /etc/issue file? |
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splashimage=(hd1,4)/boot/grub/splashimages/fiesta.xpm.gz |
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