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1 perry 1 CONSOLE
2 !!!CONSOLE
3 NAME
4 DESCRIPTION
5 PROPERTIES
6 FILES
7 SEE ALSO
8 ----
9 !!NAME
10
11
12 console - console terminal and virtual consoles
13 !!DESCRIPTION
14
15
16 A Linux system has up to 63 ''virtual consoles''
17 (character devices with major number 4 and minor number 1 to
18 63), usually called __/dev/tty__''n'' with 1 ''n''
19 63. The current console is also addressed by
20 __/dev/console__ or __/dev/tty0__, the character
21 device with major number 4 and minor number 0. The device
22 files /dev/* are usually created using the script MAKEDEV,
23 or using mknod(1), usually with mode 0622 and owner
24 root.tty.
25
26
27 Before kernel version 1.1.54 the number of virtual consoles
28 was compiled into the kernel (in tty.h: #define NR_CONSOLES
29 8) and could be changed by editing and recompiling. Since
30 version 1.1.54 virtual consoles are created on the fly, as
31 soon as they are needed.
32
33
34 Common ways to start a process on a console are: (a) tell
35 init(8) (in inittab(5)) to start a getty(8) on the console;
36 (b) ask open(1) to start a process on the console; (c) start
37 X - it will find the first unused console, and display its
38 output there. (There is also the ancient
39 doshell(8).)
40
41
42 Common ways to switch consoles are: (a) use Alt+F''n'' or
43 Ctrl+Alt+F''n'' to switch to console ''n'';
3 perry 44 !AltGr+F''n'' might bring you to console ''n''+12 [[here
45 Alt and !AltGr refer to the left and right Alt keys,
46 respectively]; (b) use Alt+!RightArrow or Alt+!LeftArrow to
1 perry 47 cycle through the presently allocated consoles; (c) use the
48 program chvt(1). (The key mapping is user settable, see
49 loadkeys(1); the above mentioned key combinations are
50 according to the default settings.)
51
52
53 The command deallocvt(1) (formerly __disalloc__)
54 will free the memory taken by the screen buffers for
55 consoles that no longer have any associated
56 process.
57 !!PROPERTIES
58
59
60 Consoles carry a lot of state. I hope to document that some
61 other time. The most important fact is that the consoles
62 simulate vt100 terminals. In particular, a console is reset
63 to the initial state by printing the two characters ESC c.
64 All escape sequences can be found in
4 perry 65 console_codes(4).
1 perry 66 !!FILES
67
68
69 ''/dev/console
70 /dev/tty*''
71 !!SEE ALSO
72
73
4 perry 74 charsets(4), console_codes(4),
75 console_ioctl(4), mknod(1), tty(4),
1 perry 76 ttys(4), getty(8), init(8),
77 chvt(1), open(1), deallocvt(1),
78 loadkeys(1), resizecons(8),
79 consolechars(8), mapscrn(8).
80 ----
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