Terminally Yours

Most Unix and Linux distros have what are called "virtual terminals". You reach these by hitting Ctrl-Alt-F key, where F1-F12 bring you to virtual terminal 1 through 12. A couple of them are special ones:

• F1 : Virtual terminal 1 is the 'boot terminal', where you will see all the boot up messages. In FreeBSD, it is also where system console messages are displayed.


• F7 or F8 : In most Linux distros, F7 is the X server terminal, while in FreeBSD it is generally F8


• F10 : In openSUSE anyway, the F10 terminal is where console messages get dumped after boot up, much like F1 is used in FreeBSD. Not sure if this is true in other Linux distros, but I imagine it is.

So if you hit Ctrl-Alt-F2 (all at the same time), you will be brought to a text mode login screen. From here you can login and do what you want. I usually have a root login on my F2 terminal, just to make admin easy.

You can even set up another X server on other virtual terminals. This means you can do cool stuff like run both GNOME and KDE at the same time. This command will fire up a GNOME session and associate it with the Ctrl-Alt-F8 terminal:

# startx gnome -- :3

Now, for me, Ctrl-Alt-F7 brings me to my KDE desktop, while Ctrl-Alt-F8 brings me to my GNOME desktop. Of course, I need lots more RAM to actually do this. 1gb just isn't going to hack it!

Another thing to note is that from a text mode terminal, you only have to use the Alt-Fkey shortcut. Ctrl-Alt-Fkey works too, so I just use that. And most installations don't have terminals on F9-F12, although you can turn them on. In FreeBSD, check the /etc/ttys file, and in Linux check the /etc/inittab file.