Multiple "terminals"

Nafie · 04-10-2009, 10:06 AM

Hello there

I'm running a slimmed down debian lenny, without a desktop enviroment - (on an oooooold PC, that's just suppose to try and playback some mp3s in the corner with mpg123.)
I'm currently tranfering my entire music collection to the internal harddrive - and when I instinctly pressed [ctrl] [alt] [f2] to get a free "terminal", there was nothing - nutting. Is this a gnome (/kde/xfce) feature to keep these virtual terminals on the f[1-6] keys? Or is it possible to enable that without a desktop enviroment?

Robhogg · 04-10-2009, 10:34 AM

Hi Nafie,

Have a look in /etc/inittab. In my installation of Debian, there are six lines:

Code:

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
...
6:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6

So here, VTs 2-6 are only available in runlevels 2 and 3. Solution could be either to change your default runlevel, or modify inittab (add your current runlevel to the section immediately after the first colon).

i92guboj · 04-10-2009, 10:44 AM

By the way, inittab has also a man page, for further reference.