only have one terminal...

lopette · 09-17-2004, 12:13 PM

hey all

I'm wondering why is it I only have one terminal on one of my machines.

on top of it, when X is started, I can get back to tty1 with Ctrl+Alt+F1, but then I can't get back to X anymore

as you can imagine it's quite annoying.. and if I can spare the hassle of installing a new system again that'd be cool...

Linux24 · 09-17-2004, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lopette
[B]hey all

I'm wondering why is it I only have one terminal on one of my machines.

Isn't this configured in /etc/inittab where the getty's are called? Maybe you are only calling up one getty. You could change this so that more would be called:

Here's mine:

Quote:

#
# inittab This file describes how the INIT process should set up
# the system in a certain run-level.
#
# Author: Miquel van Smoorenburg, <miquels@drinkel.nl.mugnet.org>
# Modified for RHS Linux by Marc Ewing and Donnie Barnes
#

# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by Mandrakelinux are:
# 0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
# 1 - Single user mode
# 2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)
# 3 - Full multiuser mode
# 4 - unused
# 5 - X11
# 6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
#
id:5:initdefault:

# System initialization.
si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0
l1:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6

# Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

# When our UPS tells us power has failed, assume we have a few minutes
# of power left. Schedule a shutdown for 2 minutes from now.
# This does, of course, assume you have powerd installed and your
# UPS connected and working correctly.
pf::powerfail:/sbin/shutdown -f -h +2 "Power Failure; System Shutting Down"

# If power was restored before the shutdown kicked in, cancel it.
pr:12345:powerokwait:/sbin/shutdown -c "Power Restored; Shutdown Cancelled"

# Run gettys in standard runlevels
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

Quote:

on top of it, when X is started, I can get back to tty1 with Ctrl+Alt+F1, but then I can't get back to X anymore

This would probably be because you only have one terminal! ;-) Try typing startx and see what happens.

lopette · 09-17-2004, 01:33 PM

I checked, and noticed that although all 6 ttys are written down, only the first one had "2345:respawn". #2-6 had "23:respawn" and were therefore missing the "45".

why ? I don't know. I chaged this and will check next time I reboot (or is there another way to do it?)

typing startx will get me "x server already started"

thanks for the tip

btmiller · 09-17-2004, 02:56 PM

Well you, could drop to runlevel 3 and then go back up to runlevel 5. It seems terminals 2-6 are only set to be activated in runlevels 2 and 3, whereas you're probably in runlevel 5 (boot to GUI). That's a weird setup, but I guess some distros do it that way.

Genesee · 09-17-2004, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lopette
I checked, and noticed that although all 6 ttys are written down, only the first one had "2345:respawn". #2-6 had "23:respawn" and were therefore missing the "45".

why ? I don't know. I chaged this and will check next time I reboot (or is there another way to do it?)

typing startx will get me "x server already started"

thanks for the tip

the numbers refer to runlevels. you can just add/remove whichever you want. the default runlevel should be at the top (of /etc/inittab). you can just edit that file to change it.

you can also use "telinit #" - where # is desired runlevel - as root to switch runlevels without rebooting. but the value in inittab will be read upon your next boot.

rjtucke · 09-17-2004, 04:45 PM

Try ctrl-F7, that's where my X hangs out...

rjtucke

lopette · 11-20-2004, 06:11 AM

that didn't solve the problem

however, since my install was pretty messy, I did a new one and now it's all fine

cheap was to do it, but since I had so many problems I figured out it was quicker - and it was