Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

darweth · 2007-04-09 16:36:53

I was just fooling around with virtual consoles. I am pretty much only familiar with GUIs and plan on teaching myself more of the console and becoming familiar with stuff like irssi, mpd+mpc and so on.

Anyway... I use alt+ctrl+f1 and etc. to switch to a virtual console. I then alt-f7 back to X. Sometimes it works, but most times it appears to attempt to load but only results in me ending up at a totally black screen with a mouse pointer. That is it. I can move the mouse, but the keyboard no longer has any affect. i cannot switch back to another virtual console, reload x... nada. i end up doing a hard reboot.

is this a common issue? is there anything i can do? (i am using GNOME 2.18 + Beryl).

Is there a better way to learn the CLI and access the console (aside from shutting X altogether). I know I can learn the stuff in gnome-terminals/konsole, etc... but I guess the point is to enable me to keep playing music or remain on irc even when X is not running.

Why does it 'lock up' when switching??

darweth · 2007-04-09 17:17:24

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=31077

hrm. found that thread. doesn't look like there has been a solution yet. I guess I will stick to GUIs.

darweth · 2007-04-09 17:52:40

HRM! So, yeah. I did a more responsible thing and disabled Beryl. Can switch from X to virtual console and back without a hitch now. Must be a Beryl thing.

mucknert · 2007-04-09 17:53:54

Why don't you just start a terminal emulator and do your CLI-work from there? Seems a lot more convenient, don't you think?

ralvez · 2007-04-09 17:57:09

I guess you may be correct on your assumption. I do not use Beryl and have no problems whatsoever.
I also use yakuake (pacman -Sy yakuake) which gives me direct access to console in the GUI.

R

darweth · 2007-04-09 18:00:46

mucknert wrote:

Why don't you just start a terminal emulator and do your CLI-work from there? Seems a lot more convenient, don't you think?

Oh, I know. Excuse my ignorance though. The thing is I am not very familiar with the CLI (other than using apt, pacman, compiling, aur, editing configs, etc)... The reason I now want to learn the CLI is so I can have stuff like irssi and mpd-mpc continually running even when I log out of GNOME/X. Terminal Emulators run within a Gnome-session and thus would halt if I logged out, closing irssi and stuff. Is that right?

That is the reason for the virtual console. Would something like yakuake resolve that?

Last edited by darweth (2007-04-09 18:03:00)

skymt · 2007-04-09 18:29:10

darweth wrote:

Oh, I know. Excuse my ignorance though. The thing is I am not very familiar with the CLI (other than using apt, pacman, compiling, aur, editing configs, etc)... The reason I now want to learn the CLI is so I can have stuff like irssi and mpd-mpc continually running even when I log out of GNOME/X. Terminal Emulators run within a Gnome-session and thus would halt if I logged out, closing irssi and stuff. Is that right?
That is the reason for the virtual console. Would something like yakuake resolve that?

You can use screen or dtach for this.

Last edited by skymt (2007-04-09 18:29:26)

mucknert · 2007-04-09 19:32:48

Indeed, you should really try out screen (don't like dtach but that is just me). It acts as a multiplexer for terminals (some would call it a Window Manager for them but that is not quite right) and can provide multiple instances inside of one login-shell or terminal emulator, complete with splits and a copy-and-paste buffer. The screen-session can be detached with all the running apps. They will continue to run in the background, even when you log out. You may re-attach to the session whenever you like. That works from a virtual console, from a terminal emulator, over ssh and so on. Try it out!

ralvez · 2007-04-09 22:11:03

Would something like yakuake resolve that?

Yes, Yakuake will do the same things you can do in the other terminals. It's just convenient because it is integrated into your KDE/Gnome desktop, that's all.

R

cschep · 2007-04-10 01:31:25

Absolutely try screen it's really cool.

you can be doing something in your terminal emulator, detach from it, reboot x, reattch, voila!

also, if your x happens to be down, or you're on a server with no x or something, you can use it to switch between windows, like alt+tab'ing through your consoles.

Pretty neat software.

Bebo · 2007-04-10 01:57:08

For the record, I have the same problem with switching from X to console and back when using Beryl on my desktop computer. I run KDE and let all logging go to vc12 and sometimes I just want to take a look there. If I currently use Beryl, I end up with a black screen with a pointer when switching back to X... I have no problems on my laptop, though. I have an nvidia GeForce card on my desktop and I'm using the proper driver for it (can't say exactly which package I'm using, my desktop is switched off and I'm at work now).

A tip for people who end up in this situation (and most other hang situations), is to use the magic sysrq keys. This saves you hard reboots. To activate it, set kernel.sysrq = 1 in /etc/sysctl.conf, and then do sysctl -p. Then, remember "rseiub" :) To do a safe reboot, press the following in order:
1. alt+sysrq+r, to set keyboard mode in XLATE (whatever that means)
2. alt+sysrq+s to sync the filesystems
3. alt+sysrq+e to send SIGTERM to all processes. If I am in the "black box mode", this will give me a console, yay! But since the service/server processes are terminated I have to go down in runlevel 1 and then back to runlevel 5, or reboot.
4. alt+sysrq+i to send SIGKILL to all processes
5. alt+sysrq+u to remount the filesystems read-only
6. alt+sysrq+b to reboot

Anyway, I long way of saying "+1" ;)

Bebo · 2007-04-11 13:38:40

Okay, maybe some progress here. I found two pieces of information that helped me.

http://symbolik.wordpress.com/2007/01/0 … riva-2007/

symbolik wrote:

Turns out the solution was in beryl-manager. Opening Beryl Settings Manager, selecting General Options in the left menu, and unchecking Sync to VBlank (which was checked by default), fixed it. After restarting X, I was able to switch between desktop sessions and tty sessions, with and without screen savers running. I upgraded to the 9746 NVIDIA driver, and everything still worked fine.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions … p?t=534273

lurko wrote:

Disabling Sync to VBlank and Detect Refresh Rate on the Main tab under General Options in BSM fixed that problem for me. Now if nvidia could just fix the black window no-more-vid-ram bug.

I tried disabling Detect Refresh Rate, but that didn't help. Then I tried disabling Sync To VBlank and that helped - a bit. Now I sometimes end up in a black screen, but when it happens it seems to suffice to hit a key to get the desktop back. At one time that didn't help but I could still kill the X server.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-04-09 16:36:53

Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

#2 2007-04-09 17:17:24

Re: Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

#3 2007-04-09 17:52:40

Re: Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

#4 2007-04-09 17:53:54

Re: Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

#5 2007-04-09 17:57:09

Re: Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

#6 2007-04-09 18:00:46

Re: Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

#7 2007-04-09 18:29:10

Re: Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

#8 2007-04-09 19:32:48

Re: Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

#9 2007-04-09 22:11:03

Re: Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

#10 2007-04-10 01:31:25

Re: Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

#11 2007-04-10 01:57:08

Re: Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

#12 2007-04-11 13:38:40

Re: Switching between virtual consoles and X unstable?

Board footer