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maidtina - May 20, 2002

		maidtina		May 20, 2002
			Hiya, nosing around linux trying to figure it out. I have this pain in the butt problem where i go into the virtual terminal, change terminal to log in as root to do some admin work and quit that terminal. How the hell do i get it back into KDE? i keep having to reboot because no online manual has something as strupid as how to quit out of virtual terminal!!!!

		ExCyber		May 20, 2002
			It's been a while since I've really used a Linux-based system, but X is usually on the "seventh VT"; not actually a VT from the kernel standpoint AFAIK, but you switch to it like a VT, usually with Alt+F7 or Ctrl+Alt+F7.

		Izlude		May 20, 2002
			Maybe i don't understand... The "virtual terminal" you said is in fact the REAL terminal (because i think your linux boot directly into X, isn't it ?). A virtual terminal is an xterm session open under X. Under the teminal, you have to tape "startx" in order to return into your X session.

		antime		May 20, 2002
			The terminals you switch between with ctrl+alt+Fn are called virtual terminals because they're not real hardware terminals connected to your box. xterm in turn is a terminal emulator.

		ExCyber		May 20, 2002
			If the console has just been flipped to a VT, X is already running. Running startx would attempt to start it again. VTs are a kernel feature. The X terminal emulators use them, but most Linux distributions also set up 4-5 console VTs as well. The "real" terminal is the physical computer screen and keyboard. edit: actually, I think I was wrong about the "real terminal" being the screen. The terminal model hails from the days of massive multiuser systems, when a single computer had to support tens or hundreds of terminals (the original ones were called "teletypewriters", which is where the abbreviation "tty" and the error message "not a typewriter" come from) connected via serial ports or similar connections. So I think it might be more accurate to say that there is no "real terminal" on desktop systems, and the kernel is doing terminal emulation through VGA and the keyboard controller. I guess this is mostly a semantic thing, though. And I just wrote a rant on it longer than my original post. Damn it.

		maidtina		May 20, 2002
			thanx, saves me solving my problems with shutdown -r now If you are already running x, it wont let you run it again, its like dosshell in that respect. Though of it, tried it. Will mess around with the VT number 7 idea