Arch Linux

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

[SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Hi,

I can't switch to terminals with the CTRL + ALT + FN(1,2,3,4) combination. I'm using GNOME 2.22.
I've found other posts with problems that the screen goes black when swtiching terminals, but here it just don't work.

Any tip? Thanks.

Last edited by Kknd (2008-06-15 16:37:50)

wonder

Developer

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2006-07-05

Posts: 5,941

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

FN is F1,F2..etc

---

Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

FN is F1,F2..etc

Yes, thats wat I tried to say . It just don't work.

Ramses de Norre

Member

From: Leuven - Belgium

Registered: 2007-03-27

Posts: 1,289

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Are they enabled in /etc/inittab ?

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Are they enabled in /etc/inittab ?

Humm, I don't know.

Here is my inittab:

#
# /etc/inittab
#

#  Runlevels:
#    0    Halt
#    1(S)    Single-user
#    2    Not used
#    3    Multi-user
#    4    Not used
#    5    X11
#    6    Reboot

## Only one of the following two lines can be uncommented!
# Boot to console
id:3:initdefault:
# Boot to X11
#id:5:initdefault:

rc::sysinit:/etc/rc.sysinit
rs:S1:wait:/etc/rc.single
rm:2345:wait:/etc/rc.multi
rh:06:wait:/etc/rc.shutdown
su:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin -p

# -8 options fixes umlauts problem on login
c1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/1 linux
c2:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/2 linux
c3:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/3 linux
#c4:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/4 linux
#c5:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/5 linux
#c6:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/6 linux

ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

# Example lines for starting a login manager
x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/xdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/gdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/opt/kde/bin/kdm -nodaemon
#x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/slim >& /dev/null

Ramses de Norre

Member

From: Leuven - Belgium

Registered: 2007-03-27

Posts: 1,289

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Try deleting the "-8" option from the agetty commands, I don't have it and maybe that's the cause.

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Don't worked .

A man without his terminals aren't a happy man.

wonder

Developer

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2006-07-05

Posts: 5,941

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

here is working flawless

---

Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

skymt

Member

Registered: 2006-11-27

Posts: 443

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Check your xorg.conf. Is the "DontVTSwitch" option enabled by any chance?

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Check your xorg.conf. Is the "DontVTSwitch" option enabled by any chance?

No =/. Maybe I can force it to be disabled?

In what section I can put "DontVTSwitch" "false" ?

skymt

Member

Registered: 2006-11-27

Posts: 443

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

That would be the "ServerFlags" section, like so:

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option "DontVTSwitch"  "false"
EndSection

But it shouldn't be on by default. Which video driver do you use?

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

But it shouldn't be on by default. Which video driver do you use?

No success.
Its an Intel X3100, using xf86-video-intel 2.3.1-1 (xorg-video-drivers).

Zer0

Member

From: Windsor, ON, Canada

Registered: 2006-08-25

Posts: 299

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Come'on now... you know it's just the darn F-Lock on your fancy keyboard!  Man I used to hate those things.

In all seriousness though.. your inittab looks fine (I have the -8 option listed here also)
Does it let you switch fine outside of X?

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Come'on now... you know it's just the darn F-Lock on your fancy keyboard!  Man I used to hate those things.

! Remember me to issue keyboard manufacturers!

In all seriousness though.. your inittab looks fine (I have the -8 option listed here also)
Does it let you switch fine outside of X?

Outside X it tries to switch (at least!), but a black screen with an blinking underline ("_") appears.

Last edited by Kknd (2008-06-13 13:14:00)

jbromley

Member

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2007-02-04

Posts: 268

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

If you do ps -ef do you see two or three lines showing agetty running? It should look like

root      3192     1  0 Jun12 tty2     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/2 linux
root      3194     1  0 Jun12 tty3     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/3 linux
root      3196     1  0 Jun12 tty4     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/4 linux

If you don't see these then for some reason agetty is dying or not running. Your inittab is fine, so I'm not sure what the problem would be. Do your system logs say anything? Perhaps a grep agetty * in /var/log might turn up something.

Also, if you do ls /dev/vc/? do you should see something like the following?

crw--w---- 1 root root 4, 0 2008-06-12 21:55 /dev/vc/0
crw------- 1 root root 4, 1 2008-06-12 22:03 /dev/vc/1
crw------- 1 root root 4, 2 2008-06-12 21:55 /dev/vc/2
crw------- 1 root root 4, 3 2008-06-12 21:55 /dev/vc/3
...

If not, there is something wrong with udev setting up the console devices.

Good luck.

Last edited by jbromley (2008-06-13 05:04:31)

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

ps- ef

[kknd@TuxDev ~]$ ps -ef | grep agetty
root      4229     1  0 14:01 tty1     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/1 linux
root      4230     1  0 14:01 tty2     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/2 linux
root      4231     1  0 14:01 tty3     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 vc/3 linux
k

The only reference in the logs about agetty is me searching for it (doing grep using sudo).

My /dev/vc:

crw--w---- 1 root root 4,  0 Jun 13 14:01 0
crw------- 1 root root 4,  1 Jun 13 14:01 1
crw--w---- 1 root tty  4s , 10 Jun 13 14:01 10
crw--w---- 1 root tty  4, 11 Jun 13 14:01 11
crw--w---- 1 root tty  4, 12 Jun 13 14:01 12
crw--w---- 1 root tty  4, 13 Jun 13 14:01 13
....

Goes from 0 to 65.

Thanks for all the help until now archers!

Last edited by Kknd (2008-06-13 17:18:01)

jbromley

Member

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2007-02-04

Posts: 268

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Your ps -ef and ls /dev/vc both look good, there should be no problem with agetty or the console devices.

I did notice one odd thing about your /etc/inittab. You have the line

id:3:initdefault:

but you also have the line

x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/xdm -nodaemon

uncommented. How are you launching GDM then? Your inittab is not doing it since you are not in runlevel 5 and even if you were, xdm would be launched and not gdm. What does the DAEMONS line of your /etc/rc.conf look like?

In your /etc/inittab I would recommend commenting the "id:3:" line and uncommenting "id:5:". Comment the "x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/xdm" line and uncomment the "x:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/gdm" line. Finally, remove xdm and gdm from your DAEMONS line in /etc/rc.conf. Unless I've missed it you haven't mentioned if VT switching works outside of X. Try the configuration above and if it still doesn't work you can boot into text mode to see if the VT terminals work outside of X.

Regards.

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

I've done the change you suggested (removing the gdm from daemons and setting it to start at inittab), but still doesn't work.
Outside X it tries to switch (at least!), but a black screen with an blinking underline ("_") appears.

Thanks for all the effort. I think that I will live in the GUI world for a while! Hehe.

jbromley

Member

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2007-02-04

Posts: 268

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

OK, then, so it's not something related to inittab/rc.conf. Did you try booting into runlevel 3 (text mode) to see if it worked there? Here's how to do that.

1. Reboot your machine. At your grub prompt select Arch and press the 'e' key.
2. You will be in edit mode. Select the kernel line of the grub stanza and again press 'e' to edit the line.
3. At the end of the line add a space and the number 3.
4. Press 'b' to boot.

This will boot you up in text mode. Once you're booted, try switching consoles. If it works then there's got to be something odd in your X.org (or GNOME?) configuration that is preventing it from working. If it still doesn't work, then I don't know. Try Ctrl+Alt+Fn as well as just plain Alt+Fn. Reboot to get back to GUI mode or log in as root and run telinit 5.

Good luck.

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

It works good on runlevel 3 (doing a telnit 3).

jbromley

Member

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2007-02-04

Posts: 268

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Well, that's a good sign. It means your base system is OK and something in your X/GNOME configuration is borking the thing. I've heard of sometimes there being problems with certain keyboard layouts and Ctrl+Alt+Fn switching. What keyboard layout are you using? Check xorg.conf and GNOME. It might help to post the keyboard section of your xorg.conf. Also, can you zap X with Ctrl+Alt+Backspace? Did this just start happening after an update? Or is this a new install and it's been happening all along?

Regards.

jarryson

Member

Registered: 2007-02-18

Posts: 298

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

maybe in the xorg.conf.

u add some options, like 'nodeadkey'

just delete it or the option

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Hi,

My keyboard section:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "keyboard"
        Option      "CoreKeyboard"
    Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
    Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option "XkbLayout" "br-abnt2"
    Option "XkbVariant" ""
EndSection

CTRL + ALT + Backspace works fine!

I'm having this problem since the first install on this computer (one month). But on my desktop it always worked, until GNOME 2.22 installation.

...

I don't have this option =/.

jbromley

Member

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2007-02-04

Posts: 268

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Try removing the XkbVariant line. Or possibly try the plain "br" layout to see if it works there.

Kknd

Member

From: Brazil, Santa Catarina

Registered: 2007-08-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open terminals

Try removing the XkbVariant line. Or possibly try the plain "br" layout to see if it works there.

Worked! .

Thanks for all the help!