Virtual Console on Separate Screen

As in the title, I would like to know how (if at all possible) to run a virtual console on my second screen, and still have X, Openbox, all my graphical stuff on my main screen.

I had considered this, but if I set it to TwinView, it stretches by desktop background, and my SLiM logon background.
In the nVidia config utility, I saw an option for a separate X screen, would I be able to set this up to have a terminal full screen on my second screen?

Similar Messages

Blank Virtual Consoles

I have a similar problem to https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 1#p1245351 . Once I start X, my virtual consoles become invisible, though I can access them by typing blindly.
I have used systemd for a long time. When I boot my virtual console appears just fine. I get the usual booting messages. It switches to VT7 to run X, as I use lxdm.
My mouse freezes briefly now and again, which could be part of the problem.
I am running the nvidia driver for a GT630.
Either from lxdm, or from my running X session, switching to VT1-6 causes my monitor to go into sleep mode. If I type blindly, I can login. When I switch back to VT7, X reappears. When I reboot/shutdown, my terminals also don't reappear.
I tried setterm, xset, and also the xscreen saver. No settings will prevent the blanking, which seems more terminal mode/resolution related.
I tried sudo xset -dpms; xset s off and also turning off DPMS for xscreensaver (apparently separate need) via xscreensaver-demo (reloading the daemon). There was no luck with doing either or both of these at the same time. I looked through all of nvidia's settings in Xorg.conf and found "Option DPMS" for my Monitor 0, so I commented that out. No luck there, either. I also tried typing setterm commands blindly, to no avail.
Blindly typing fbset won't work either. It stubbornly stays in "1024x768-76". [Using a script to set and retrieve blindly.]
Things stopped working when I put arch on a new computer with a new monitor. I am using the nvidia driver:
Section "Monitor"
# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "LG Electronics IPS235"
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 61.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce GT 630"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection

For informational purposes, I still have this issue, and I think it is KMS related. Apparently the nvidia propietary drivers use their own similar method, instead. My card also has issues with the nouveau driver and detecting KMS (X logs report nouveau complains there is no KMS). I also tried the very latest install media. This insists on loading nouveau, and I get blanking and powersaving unless I set the kernel parameter for nomodeset. So, even trying to boot in the FB console will cause blanking now. (It also happens at least back to 2013 install media, I have one I tried.)
(Of course, I don't do things like vga=xxx or anything that would turn KMS off with regards to any X or frame buffer problems.)
LATER: I just went to http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/CodeNames/. I have a GK107 GeForce GT 630 OEM. This is a weird little OEM card nvidia created, and it doesn't fit on the matrix anywhere, amongst all the other 630's, being a Kepler. I believe the 630M Fermi is more common, and all the 630's except one are Fermi's. My Kepler version isn't there, it seems, though a GK208 is listed as the sole GT 630 Kepler.
So, it is likely that if you have a card like mine, you are out of luck running nouveau, and may even have blank screens on booting from the official install media. (Use nomodeset.)
(I do have built-in motherboard graphics. Disabling that doesn't help: ie. choose PCIe in the UEFI BIOS. But maybe there is an oddity there causing my problem.)
Last edited by dbourgeo (2015-04-08 17:45:46)

Monitor didn't display, Switching to virtual console. Pls, Help me !

I'm configuring Sunfire T2000 server, I have a problem with monitor display. I haven't seen what it displays likes normal.
I saw a report error as below
/pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@8/pci@0/TSI,mko@0
Doesn't support terminal emulation mode; switching to virtual console
I have configed in OPB : output = screen
input = Keyboard
I'm using Sun XVR-200 card and Sun LCD monitor, OS solaris 10 is pre-installed.
Pls help me. I'm deploying my Project. it's very important with my customer.
Thanks so much
Edited by: olala23 on 22:31 14-11-2008

Sun patch 122472-05 should correct the issue.

Urxvt: Use same colors as in virtual console?

How can I find out the color palette of the colors of the Linux virtual console?
I would like to use them for urxvt, the colors of which currently are a bit hard to read (e.g. directory names shown by ls):
URxvt*background: black
URxvt*foreground: white
URxvt*color0: black
URxvt*color1: red3
URxvt*color2: green3
URxvt*color3: yellow3
URxvt*color4: blue2
URxvt*color5: magenta3
URxvt*color6: cyan3
URxvt*color7: gray90
URxvt*color8: grey50
URxvt*color9: red
URxvt*color10: green
URxvt*color11: yellow
URxvt*color12: blue
URxvt*color13: magenta
URxvt*color14: cyan
URxvt*color15: white

What I did in the end:
Got the colors printed on screen, using Stefano Palazzo’s script, one of many available on the web.
Took a screenshot.
Used a color picker in a graphics application.
Colors are (rounding errors corrected):
URxvt*background: #000000
URxvt*foreground: #AAAAAA
URxvt*color0: #000000
URxvt*color1: #AA0000
URxvt*color2: #00AA00
URxvt*color3: #AA5500
URxvt*color4: #0000AA
URxvt*color5: #AA00AA
URxvt*color6: #00AAAA
URxvt*color7: #AAAAAA
URxvt*color8: #555555
URxvt*color9: #FF5555
URxvt*color10: #55FF55
URxvt*color11: #FFFF55
URxvt*color12: #5555FF
URxvt*color13: #FF55FF
URxvt*color14: #55FFFF
URxvt*color15: #FFFFFF

Virtual console size (syslinux bootloader)

Hi all. Is there any possibility to change the size of virtual console? Not resolution — the resolution is what everybody means when I search for information (Google didn’t give me what I need). I have about 22″ widescreen monitor and it’s inconvenient to work in VC. I would like to make it say 1024×768 and center with native resolution. Add some border. Is it possible?

ConnorBehan wrote:
You mean without using a framebuffer? The only way I've found for a regular VGA console is to change the setting in my BIOS or run
echo crt_disable > /proc/acpi/ibm/video
but of course that depends on your hardware.
I don’t have “ibm” directory in /proc/acpi. And what would the command do if I had?
DSpider wrote:The framebuffer resolution is something like 640x480 or 800x600. I can see why you would want to change it (I also have a 1920x1080 monitor).
I think I didn’t explain it well enough. I don’t have problems with resolution. It’s 1680×1050 (in VC and in Xorg). But in VC it’s inconvenient to have characters from the very left part of the screen to the very right — too much space to look at. So I wanted to keep this native resolution but kinda “draw a 1024×768 box” in the center and place VC there.

Different virtual console on each monitor on a two monitor setup

I'm looking for information on how to configure my system so that I can have one virtual console on each of my monitors. Right now the left monitor is mirrored onto the right one. I'm talking about in runlevel 3 (no X!)

Have you tried to make a new Window ( in "File" menu) and then drag the new window to the other screen?
It's a very simple solution. Unless there is another problem you haven't mentioned.

Font corruption in virtual consoles

Not sure where to put this, so it goes here.
I am currently a victim of font/screen corruption in the virtual consoles (probably not X, not sure, haven't installed a WM/DE yet). I am using a 1680x1050 resolution (8bit color) with the vesafb driver for the framebuffer (have installed proprietary nvidia drivers for X). This is my native resolution, and my attempt to get a decent console environment without KMS, which the proprietary nvidia drivers do not allow (or so I have read). This works fine, the problem arises when I choose a large font to compensate for the larger resolution.
Most fonts above 16px seem to cause corruption. I really like the Terminus font (ter-120b in particular), but it causes corruption. If I go down to ter-116b, it works fine. For some reason, ter-132b works fine too, guess it's got something to do with 16px+16px=32px. This is too large, though, so I can't use it. I have also tried other fonts than Terminus (One called sun12x22 (or sth like that), for example) with the same results. All fonts greater than 16px seem to cause corruption (unless they are as large as 32px). Note that the ter-XXXn fonts (e.g. ter-120n) also cause corruption.
When I say "corruption" I mean pixels not being redrawn properly, "left-over" pixels. It is easily reproducible by typing something in the terminal, moving the cursor a few characters back (1 or more), and pressing the "delete" button to delete the character to the right of the cursor. The character is not properly deleted on screen, some of the pixels are left. Note that this happens in editors like nano/vim as well.
I have tried different resolutions and framebuffer settings (ywrap, redraw, mtrr and what not), but have narrowed it down to a font problem as corruption occurs even with default settings/resolution.
Any suggestions? Know what causes this? Workarounds/fixes?
In worst case I'll just down the resolution until a 16px font is okay, but it would be a shame not to get the native resolution.
EDIT: Oh, and my GPU is a nvidia GTX260 (the 216 core version)
Last edited by Mzg (2010-07-06 19:00:06)

I've seen corruption like this with a lot of cairo apps because the text to be rendered is sent to a buggy EXA driver. Does text look better if you turn off EXA acceleration?

Customize virtual consoles

Hey, I've been reading up on how to setup my virtual consoles with /etc/inittab. I've got a couple switched over to mingetty so that they now automatically login which is great. I'd like to take it a step further and have various virtual consoles run a command on login. What I want to happen is that when I boot my machine tty1 is automatically logged in and presenting me with a command prompt while tty2 has also logged in and connected over ssh to my server and presenting the server's command prompt. I already have ssh setup with rsa keys so all inittab has to run is 'ssh [email protected]'
e.g.
TTY1 would show [user@local ~]$
and TTY2 would show [user@server ~]$
without having to type a single key
Anyone have a suggestion?
Patrick

I can tell you that no, virtual consoles are not supposed to disappear.
I use nvidia-settings and configure a multi-head too, but when I switch to a console, only my external secondary screen gets into power-saving mode. The main screen (my laptop's screen since I'm on a laptop) turns off for a second, then turn back on with the requested virtual console.
I think there might be something to set somewhere to power-on the screen, or maybe the sleep signal sent to the second screen also reaches the main one for some reason. I can't really help further than recommanding you to play with DPMS on/off settings and other settings like that to see if you can manually get it to turn on again. You can also try various versions of nvidia and X (or try nouveau) and find out where the bug sits.

[SOLVED] Virtual Consoles are blank

All my virtual consoles are blank except for VC1 which is showing boot messages.
I have GDM set to start as a daemon and vc7 works for X just fine. vc2-6 just show a blinking cursor with no login prompt.
I have clueless of what the issue could be. I have not disabled any VC's in /etc/inittab
Last edited by bloodniece (2009-10-12 15:02:05)

bashrc
# Check for an interactive session
[ -z "$PS1" ] && return
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
alias pacman='pacman-color'
alias mkdir='mkdir -v -p'
alias big='du --max-depth=1 | sort -nr | head'
alias home='cd && clear'
alias chromium='chromium-browser --enable-plugins'
#PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '
PS1='\[\e[0;32m\]\u\[\e[m\] \[\e[1;34m\]\w\[\e[m\] \[\e[m\] \[\e[1;32m\]\$ \[\e[m\]\[\e[1;37m\] '
eval `dircolors -b`
export GREP_COLOR="1;33"
alias grep='grep --color=auto'
if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then
. /etc/bash_completion
fi
# Audio Plugins
export LADSPA_PATH=/usr/lib/ladspa:~/.ladspa:/usr/local/lib/ladspa
export LV2_PATH=/usr/lib/lv2:~/.lv2:/usr/local/lib/lv2
export DSSI_PATH=/usr/lib/dssi:~/.dssi:/usr/local/lib/dssi
export VST_PATH=/usr/lib/vst:~/.vst:/usr/local/lib/vst
# SSH Keychain
/usr/bin/keychain -Q -q ~/.ssh/id_dsa
[[ -f $HOME/.keychain/$HOSTNAME-sh ]] && source $HOME/.keychain/$HOSTNAME-sh
# WELCOME SCREEN
clear
echo -ne "${LIGHTGREEN}" "Hello, $USER. today is, "; date
echo -e "${LIGHTRED}"; cal ;
echo -ne "${CYAN}";
echo -ne "${LIGHTPURPLE}Sysinfo:";uptime ;echo ""
#extraction utils
extract () {
if [ -f $1 ] ; then
case $1 in
*.tar.bz2) tar xvjf $1 ;;
*.tar.gz) tar xvzf $1 ;;
*.bz2) bunzip2 $1 ;;
*.rar) unrar x $1 ;;
*.gz) gunzip $1 ;;
*.tar) tar xvf $1 ;;
*.tbz2) tar xvjf $1 ;;
*.tgz) tar xvzf $1 ;;
*.zip) unzip $1 ;;
*.Z) uncompress $1 ;;
*.7z) 7z x $1 ;;
*) echo "don't know how to extract '$1'..." ;;
esac
else
echo "'$1' is not a valid file!"
fi
bash_profile
. $HOME/.bashrc

Virtual consoles question

hi, I'm aware this is a probably dumb question but ...
in my installation there are only 7 VC (virtual console), trying to launch gdm and slim to login into 2 different windows manager (I'm experimenting with compiz fusion standalone and sometimes I need to see how openbox works in the same condition) happened the warning/error message "VC7 is already in use, do you want to use another VC? yes/no" (this is not the exact message) I tried to launch it on VC8 but on that VC I have a "black screen with a flashing underscore" where I cannot write nothing.
now my question is, is it possible to have more X session opened in more than one virtual console (and so enable more than 7 VC)?
I'm running a 1 year old installation of arch linux so it's possible I broke something or something has been modified in new installers..
Thanks for your help

nitrogen is an application to draw a wallpaper when using only a window manager.
Thanks for the "DISPLAY=:1" tip, I tried it but unfortunately it doesn't solve my ""problem"" (actually )
I'll play some more with it tomorrow..
anyway,in case someone know how nitrogen works, running "DISPLAY=:1 nitrogen --restore" or "nitrogen --restore" I get:
"Couldn't find group for :1.0."
"Could not get bg info"
p.s. it doesn't work with openbox too so it's not compiz standalone related
Thanks in advance

Virtual Consoles on Multihead

I am just wondering if all of my Virtual Consoles are supposed to disappear on multihead? I can't seem to find any information on that, or people complaining about it, either way.
I am used to being in X, and then doing Ctrl-Alt-F1 etc. When I do that, both of my screens blank and go into power saving mode. I can then switch back by Alt-F7, the screens spring back to life, and I can see X again on both terminals.
If I type blindly, things work. Eg. login, then "touch foobar" will create that file.
I am doing this using nvidia-settings to set up my multihead.

I can tell you that no, virtual consoles are not supposed to disappear.
I use nvidia-settings and configure a multi-head too, but when I switch to a console, only my external secondary screen gets into power-saving mode. The main screen (my laptop's screen since I'm on a laptop) turns off for a second, then turn back on with the requested virtual console.
I think there might be something to set somewhere to power-on the screen, or maybe the sleep signal sent to the second screen also reaches the main one for some reason. I can't really help further than recommanding you to play with DPMS on/off settings and other settings like that to see if you can manually get it to turn on again. You can also try various versions of nvidia and X (or try nouveau) and find out where the bug sits.

Virtual Console reprints user input

When I log into the virtual console, my input is reprinted to the screen (including passwords, etc...).
i.e.
hostname login: name
>>name
password: password << actually shows characters being entered
$: command
>> command
they lines with >>'s are whatever I type being echoed back to the screen.
I don't really know where to look for the problem, so any help would be appreciated.
The problem doesn't occur when I am running a terminal emulator inside my DE, but just on the virtual consoles.

I have exactly the same problem on my laptop, but it doesn't happen all the time and usually just on tty1. Annoying when you forget about it and try to enter your password while somebody is watching you...

Virtual console problem after switching runlevels

After switching into runlevel 5, the cursor on all virtual consoles (1-5) is stuck at the top left of the screen, and screen scrolling is disabled.
If I boot with runlevel 3, everything works fine, until I manually change into runlevel 5.
I'm not sure if this is related to the latest Xorg upgrade, but things used to work well until not long ago.
--Elad

Sounds familiar. If you have similar hardware... is http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=61517 of any help?

Random question: Why are there multiple virtual consoles?

I'm very interested in every single detail of some things and that has spawned a random question.
Why do we have multiple virtual consoles(proper term?) ? i.e. if I am looking at my desktop I can simply hit ctrl-alt-f3 for example, and poof! I'm at a new login prompt.
What is/are the purpose(s) for this feature? Can someone name off some scenarios?
Thanks!

Forgotten Path wrote:
How so? I tried running
virtualbox --startvm Windoze
on a virtual console and received an error about finding the X server.
Here is my ~/.xinitrc
#xset b off
setxkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps
case $WM in
kde)
ck-launch-session dbus-launch startkde
gnome)
ck-launch-session dbus-launch gnome-session
compiz)
~/bin/compiz&
ck-launch-session dbus-launch compiz ccp
#ck-launch-session dbus-launch fusion-icon
lxde)
~/bin/lxde&
ck-launch-session dbus-launch startlxde
openbox)
~/bin/openbox&
ck-launch-session dbus-launch openbox
e17)
ck-launch-session dbus-launch
enlightenment_start
vb)
VirtualBox -startvm "Windows XP" -fullscreen
xfce4)
ck-launch-session dbus-launch startxfce4
i3)
ck-launch-session dbus-launch i3
ck-launch-session dbus-launch startxfce4
esac
From the console, use :
WM=vb startx
or, if there is already something running on Screen 0 (OpenBox, Xfce4, whatever) simply:
WM=vb startx -- :1
Note that the examples start VitutalBox. I could just as easily set WM to any of the other environments defined in my .xinitrc.
I have also made this work straight from kdm. I think I created a custom session, but I may have created a .desktop file in /usr/share/apps/kdm/sessions/
I am not using kdm on this machine and I don't remember
edit: Typo
Last edited by ewaller (2012-02-11 23:14:09)

Display lost when switching virtual consoles (xorg 1.12.1-1)

Hi all,
About a week ago I noticed that I will sometimes be left with a black screen when I switch between virtual consoles using Ctrl+Alt+F8, etc. The system is still running, and can be communicated with over the network, but, short of rebooting via ssh or killing X, there seems to be nothing I can do to get the screen working again. It seems especially common when switching between F7 and F8 (both graphical) but sometimes occurs when switching from a graphical to a text based console (F1-F6).
I have downgraded from recent versions of xorg-server, xorg-server-common and the nvidia drivers to see if the problem would go away, but without success.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Last edited by conn-fused (2012-04-22 05:22:28)

Well, many 20-nvidia-conf files later, the problem persists.
Not only that, but the number of jumps between virtual consoles before failure seems to be perfectly consistent. I login as one user (a GUI session on tty7), then switch user to open a new GUI session on tty8. Now, (using Ctrl+Alt+F7 or F8, as appropriate), I switch back to the first user (enter a password because opening the new session locks the first one), switch back to the second user, back to the first, and then try switch back to the second ... and all is lost. The fifth switch fails: every ... single ... time.
I'd appreciate it if someone else using an Nvidia card and the proprietary drivers would try this procedure and see if they too face the black screen after the fifth switch. If you do, it's not something I've misconfigured on my own, but an issue with a package (probably nvidia's) that I suppose I'll just have to wait for a fix for.
Thanks!

Virtual Console on Separate Screen

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