gettys

[email.listen at googlemail.com]

Am Wed, 14. June 2006 09:25 schrieb VIGNESH:
> Hi!
>      How many getty`s or CLI`s can one have other than the <F1> to <F12>
> keys... What after that ? I have  <F7> for GUI and the remaining 11 as
> CLI`s . Can I have more ?
> Not that I need it..Just curious...

Konsoles (virtuall terminals) are defined in /etc/inittab:
---8<--- /etc/inittab ---8<---
# Note that on most Debian systems tty7 is used by the X Window System,
# so if you want to add more getty's go ahead but skip tty7 if you run X.
#
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

---8<--- /etc/inittab ---8<---
So definig more than 6 vt's is quite easy, just add new lines, e.g.:

10:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty10
11:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty11
... snip ...
13:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty13
14:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty14
... snip ...
24:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty24

There is a liitle pithole you have to be aware of.
You have to know that if you start another x-session, e.g. by 
using 'gdmflexiserver', the next free vt is used (vt8 in Debian) So if you 
start getty's on vt 8 to vt12 the next free vt will be vt13. For this it may 
be better not to start getty's on vt8 (and may be vt9).

In 'man chvt' you see how to reach them:

The keymap action `Console_N' (usually bound to key combination 
(Ctrl-)LeftAlt-FN, with N in the range  1-12,  and to  RightAlt-FN-12  with N 
in the range 13-24) also allows to switch to another VT, but really switches 
only if it is already allocated. This prevents allocating new VTs with a 
misplaced keystroke.

So Ctrl+LeftAlt+Fn for vt 1 to 12 and Ctrl+RightAlt+Fn for vt 13 to 24

IMHO a much more elegant way is using screen.
A 'man screen' says:
DESCRIPTION
 Screen  is  a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal
 between several processes (typically interactive shells).  Each virtual
 terminal provides the functions of a DEC VT100 terminal and, in addition, 
 several control functions from the ISO 6429 (ECMA 48, ANSI X3.64) and ISO
 2022 standards (e.g. insert/delete line and support for multiple character
 sets).  There is a scrollback history buffer for each virtual terminal and a 
 copy-and-paste mechanism that allows moving text regions between windows.

>
>
> Also how to make multisession cds with nautilus CdCreator and cdrecord.
Never had a need for this, I myself prefer CDRW's. IMO on the long run it's 
cheaper to use RW medias than burning multisession CDR's. 

> Also how to use wget for downloads.I am going to put broadband soon so I
> need nice download tool. What do you suggest.I use Warty..
Firefox for html based file downloads, gftp for accessing ftp-based downloads 
and wget for recursively downloads (e.g. online books)

A good place for online books is o'reilly:
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/

regards,
Thomas