1CONSOLE(4)                 Linux Programmer's Manual                CONSOLE(4)
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NAME

6       console - console terminal and virtual consoles
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DESCRIPTION

9       A  Linux  system  has up to 63 virtual consoles (character devices with
10       major number 4 and minor number 1 to 63), usually called /dev/ttyn with
11       1  ≤  n ≤ 63.  The current console is also addressed by /dev/console or
12       /dev/tty0, the character device with major number 4 and minor number 0.
13       The  device  files /dev/* are usually created using the script MAKEDEV,
14       or using mknod(1), usually with mode 0622 and owner root.tty.
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16       Before kernel version 1.1.54 the number of virtual  consoles  was  com‐
17       piled  into  the  kernel (in tty.h: #define NR_CONSOLES 8) and could be
18       changed by editing and recompiling.  Since version 1.1.54 virtual  con‐
19       soles are created on the fly, as soon as they are needed.
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21       Common  ways  to start a process on a console are: (a) tell init(8) (in
22       inittab(5)) to start a mingetty(8) (or agetty(8)) on the  console;  (b)
23       ask  openvt(1)  to  start a process on the console; (c) start X—it will
24       find the first unused console, and display its output there.  (There is
25       also the ancient doshell(8).)
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27       Common  ways  to  switch consoles are: (a) use Alt+Fn or Ctrl+Alt+Fn to
28       switch to console n; AltGr+Fn might bring you to console n+12 [here Alt
29       and  AltGr refer to the left and right Alt keys, respectively]; (b) use
30       Alt+RightArrow or Alt+LeftArrow to cycle through  the  presently  allo‐
31       cated  consoles; (c) use the program chvt(1).  (The key mapping is user
32       settable, see loadkeys(1); the above  mentioned  key  combinations  are
33       according to the default settings.)
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35       The command deallocvt(1) (formerly disalloc) will free the memory taken
36       by the screen buffers for consoles that no longer have  any  associated
37       process.
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39   Properties
40       Consoles  carry  a  lot  of  state.  I hope to document that some other
41       time.  The most important fact is that the consoles simulate vt100 ter‐
42       minals.   In  particular,  a  console  is reset to the initial state by
43       printing the two characters ESC c.  All escape sequences can  be  found
44       in console_codes(4).
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FILES

47       /dev/console
48       /dev/tty*
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SEE ALSO

51       chvt(1),   deallocvt(1),   loadkeys(1),   mknod(1),   openvt(1),   con‐
52       sole_codes(4),   console_ioctl(4),   tty(4),   ttyS(4),    charsets(7),
53       agetty(8), init(8), mapscrn(8), mingetty(8), resizecons(8), setfont(8)
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COLOPHON

56       This  page  is  part of release 3.53 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
57       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
58       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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62Linux                             1994-10-31                        CONSOLE(4)
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