Missing virtual terminals

[ZIYAD A. M. AL-BATLY]

On Sun, 2005-08-07 at 23:00 +0200, John Nilsson wrote:
> On mån, 2005-08-08 at 00:18 +0530, Ankur Jain wrote:
> > Well I have got all these lines in my /etc/inittab; still I cannot
> > gain access to the virtual terminals. Probably it's got something to
> > do with some package recently upgraded.
> > > 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
> > > 2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
> > > 3:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3
> > > 4:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4
> > > 5:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty5
> > > 6:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6
> 
> Did they change default runlevel? It looks like they changed it so that
> getty will only be running on tty1 if runlvel > 3
> 
> 'ps a | grep getty' will tell you which gettys are running...
> 
> Have they/you manage to sneak the following into xorg.conf?
> Option "DontVTSwitch"  "true"
> 
> /John
> 
> 
What exactly happens when you press "CTRL+ALT+F1" from within X?  Do you
switch to a blank screen or simply *nothing* happens (you are still
inside GNOME/KDE)?

There's a possibility that you really changed to the console/virtual
terminal but because of a problem with the "Frame Buffer" that all you
see is blank.  Try hitting "CTRL+ALT+F1" and if it changes to a blank
screen, and try logging in blindly (just enter your login name carefully
then hitting Enter, enter your password carefully, and hit Enter).  Run
something like "eject" or ">I_am_in".  See if the CD-ROM ejects (or the
file is created).  If that, it means you problem is with the Frame
Buffer, not with the login procedure/process.

Ziyad.