Why seven consoles?

arizonagroovejet · 11-11-2009, 05:33 AM

When you boot the typical Linux install you have seven consoles available, tty1 though tty7 which are accessible by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F1 though Ctrl-Alt-F7. X is usually running on tty7, though I think Fedora has moved it to tty1.

Why are there seven consoles? Why not five or eight or two?

I promise this isn't a homework question - no one's give me homework in over a decade

It's just something I found myself wondering about the other day and I haven't been able to find an answer.

sycamorex · 11-11-2009, 05:55 AM

There are two questions that have kept me awake at night for the last 10 years:
Why are there exactly seven terminals and who shot JFK. I'm not sure we'll ever get an answer for the former

Vrajgh · 11-11-2009, 06:57 AM

Well, there are seven because that's what is defined in everyone's* inittab. You can have five,eight or two if you wish.

I think the previous post sums up why everyone's inittab is set up like that.

* Well, many anyway.

voyciz · 11-11-2009, 08:43 AM

After reading this, I changed mine to 3, thanks

salasi · 11-11-2009, 08:44 AM

My rather faded memory seems to indicate, in the old days, some distro went for 16 (probably sixteen minus one for X, if that was in use) rather than seven. This was presented as some big advantage, although given that I've never used more than two or three I can't see it helping me much.

repo · 11-11-2009, 08:44 AM

Quote:

After reading this, I changed mine to 3, thanks

why 3 ? :-)