On Thu, 2002-09-05 at 09:45, Derek Fountain wrote:
We're way past the level of info the original poster wanted, but just to clarify this: what you get to when you hit <alt-Fn> is a previously opened *virtual* terminal. These are started at boot time and have specific device files: /dev/ttyX. The one, single, real console is generally on <alt-F1>: /dev/tty0 (or an alternative if reconfigured).
The poster was refering to *pseudo* terminals, which don't exist until requested via the master /dev/ptmx interface. At that point the pseudo terminal connection is created-on-demand for the xterm or whatever to use.
Pseudo terminals are also created for connections over the network like telnet and ssh sessions. The distinction between virtual and pseudo terminals took a while to sink in for me. And since pseudos can come from different places, that makes it a little more confusing. Best Regards, Keith -- LPIC-2, MCSE, N+ Once in a moment, it all comes to you As soon as you get it, you want something new Got spam? Get spastic http://spastic.sourceforge.net