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Linux virtual console key mapping

The mapping of Alt-F1 through Alt-F12 to virtual consoles in Linux is configurable and arbitrary. Most distributions used to map 1-6 as text consoles and 7 as X, but there's no rule about it or anything. Other keys can be mapped to consoles as well. I believe this is all controlled by 'init' and configured in 'inittab'. Also, X usually just binds to whatever the next available virtual console is. It's not configured in inittab. If you've got 1-6 showing logins and you're using X on 7, you can switch to console 1, run 'startx' and bring up another X session on 8. Crag 23:55, 12 February 2008 (CET)

Features versus UI

I thought about this some more and figured out something that had been bothering me.

The features (multiple consoles, multiple console types, console switching, etc) should be designed independently from the means of accessing those features (key bindings, mouse gestures, neural interface).

As far as UI goes, I'd like to have a "meta shell" which behaves like the mouse-less window manager 'ratpoison', allowing me to specify a meta-key to access the meta shell, as well as bindings for all the commands. I also recognize that I'm likely to be in the minority in this and some people will want the ability to manage virtual consoles via one-press hot keys (SysReq and all that) and some will want mouse-only access.

So I'd like to recommend that the features and UI be designed separately. Features which come to mind are:

• Configuration
  • Access control (another way of saying the meta-console is lockable)
    • mf mentioned this saying something about user policies
    • whether the meta-console defaults to locked or unlocked
    • who can lock and unlock VCs and the MC.
  • Boot-time Virtual Consoles
    • Name/Description
    • Mode (text, gui)
    • Application initially controlling console (text login, GUI login, already-logged-in explorer, etc)
• VC management
  • Listing of currently live VCs
  • VC switching
  • Creation of new VCs
  • means of taking over/sharing consoles (basically extending RDP to text console)
  • means of killing app(s) on/within a VC (like killall $(ps h -t tty1 | awk '{print $1}'))

Crag 08:40, 13 February 2008 (CET)