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Author Topic: No virtual terminals  (Read 6966 times)

Offline PDP-8

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No virtual terminals
« on: April 07, 2018, 05:22:02 PM »
Jason - you're probably getting sick of me by now. :)

Noticed in the dCorePlus-Stretch and Stretch64 versions, there doesn't seem to be at least one virtual terminal.

Not a problem, I just use the "multivt" boot parameter, and that provides it - well more than one now of course..

Didn't know if that was by design or not...
That's a UNIX book! - cool  -- Garth

Offline Jason W

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Re: No virtual terminals
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2018, 10:15:33 PM »
No, PDP-8, I am not getting sick of you.  :-)  Reporting things that don't work or suggestions for improvement are part of what get things fixed or improved. 

Is this the same behavior as seen with CorePlus?

The multivt boot code is an option, and it appears CorePlus does not have that option in place by default, and I like to stay with Core/CorePlus as much as possible.

Thanks.

Offline PDP-8

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Re: No virtual terminals
« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2018, 04:35:08 AM »
Oops - yes this behavior is in both the 32 and 64 bit CorePlus versions for stretch.

I looked at /etc/inittab and don't see anything wrong, that is only TTY1 as a login shell is uncommented, which I assume is for the X session.  TTY 2-6 are commented out.

I mean not a big deal, I could always actually install it, and comment out the second tty if I only wanted just one virtual terminal...

No biggie.  BTW, for our younger lurkers, we can thank Microsoft Xenix for the ability to ctrl-alt-f1/f2/f3 virtual terminals etc, but I digress....
That's a UNIX book! - cool  -- Garth

Offline Jason W

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Re: No virtual terminals
« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2018, 06:06:58 AM »
CorePlus as in standard Tinycore CorePlus that is.

Offline PDP-8

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Re: No virtual terminals
« Reply #4 on: April 09, 2018, 07:01:04 AM »
Hi Jason!  Here is a comparison of the difference in behavior between TinyCorePlus 9.0 vs dCorePlus-Stretch64:

Note:  the /etc/inittab appears to be identical to each other, but the behavior seems far different from each other...

TinyCorePlus - default boot, NO additional parameters
CTRL-ALT-F1  tc&box:~$
CTRL-ALT-F2  X session

dCorePlus-Stretch64 - default boot, NO additional parameters
CTRL-ALT-F1  Xsession
CTRL-ALT-F2  black screen, no text, just blinking cursor no response to keyboard

====
TinyCorePlus 9.0 WITH multivt:
CTRL-ALT-F1  tc@box:~$
CTRL-ALT-F2  box login:
CTRL-ALT-F3  box login:
CTRL-ALT-F4/F5/F6  Please press enter to activate...
CTRL-ALT-F7  X session

dCorePlus-Stretch64 WITH multivt:
CTRL-ALT-F1  X session
CTRL-ALT-F2  box login:
CTRL-ALT-F3  box login:
CTRL-ALT-F4/F5+ Please press enter to activate this console

It just had me curious why the default boot of dCorePlus-Stretch64 seems to have no virtual terminals, yet the etc/inittab seems the same between both TC and dCore..
That's a UNIX book! - cool  -- Garth

Offline Jason W

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Re: No virtual terminals
« Reply #5 on: April 09, 2018, 10:43:13 PM »
Here is what I see with dCore-stretch.

Booting dCore-stretch base boot prompt and without multivt:
CTRL-ALT-F1: command prompt
CTRL-ALT-F2: no change
CTRL-ALT-F3: no change
CTRL-ALT-F4: no change
CTRL-ALT-F5: no change


Booting with dCore-stretch with the base and multivt command options:
CTRL-ALT-F1: command prompt
CTRL-ALT-F2: login prompt
CTRL-ALT-F3: login prompt
CTRL-ALT-F4: Please press enter to activate this console

Booting with dCore-stretch X session with the multivt option:
CTRL-ALT-F1: X session
CTRL-ALT-F2: login prompt
CTRL-ALT-F3: login prompt
CTRL-ALT-F4: Please press enter to activate this console

Booting with dCore-stretch X session without the multivt option:
CTRL-ALT-F1: X session
CTRL-ALT-F2: black screen
CTRL-ALT-F3: black screen
CTRL-ALT-F4: black screen
CTRL-ALT-F5: black screen


This is ok with me for dCore and the multivt option.  Of course, I am open to ideas. 

Offline PDP-8

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Re: No virtual terminals
« Reply #6 on: April 10, 2018, 02:21:27 AM »
Ah, ok no problem - just needed to know it is that way by design.

Since it was the first time I'd ever seen them presented that way, and differs from TC just a little bit, I thought I might have had a keyboard/locale issue.

Not trying to start a virtual-terminal war, but I really prefer the logic of dCore's setup.  I'm cool now!
That's a UNIX book! - cool  -- Garth