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**oshunluvr** · Mar 22, 2010, 10:19 AM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

Well, part of your answer is /etc/default/console-setup

lines 4-5

# Setup these consoles. Most people do not need to change this.
ACTIVE_CONSOLES="/dev/tty[1-6]"

Whether or not they're being called at boot - do ls /dev/tty? and you'll see

/dev/tty0 /dev/tty1 /dev/tty2 /dev/tty3 /dev/tty4 /dev/tty5 /dev/tty6 /dev/tty7 /dev/tty8 /dev/tty9

I had this issue for a little while, then upgraded to 4.4.1 and it went away before I had a chance to research it.

As far as re-installing everything over again - I don't think you can do that while running the system. Could do a new install

Are you getting a blank screen or no action at all when you type ALT-F1?

**thegoonden** · Mar 22, 2010, 01:34 PM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

I get a flashing dash in the upper left.

My /etc/default/console-setup contains those lines you describe, and /dev is stuffed full of tty's

What I don't get is that I can run them by hand and they work, but they aren't there on boot.

Can't be bothered re-installing, it's a very windows thing to do, and I'd never remember all the packages I have installed (unless there is a way to export a list of what's installed now, and automagically reinstall those packages on the new system).

Didn't reinstall gentoo for 5 years, so that's the minimum standard of longevity

Thanks for your help.

**oshunluvr** · Mar 22, 2010, 04:28 PM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

Can't be bothered re-installing, it's a very windows thing to do,

Totally agree with you there.

dpkg -l will list every package you've got installed but it would be better if we figured out what is causing it.

Is there any logging when you attempt ALT-F1? dmesg before and after

Just for kicks - look at ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-appletsrc and look for the section containing plugin=launcher and post the entire section.

**verndog** · Mar 22, 2010, 07:38 PM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

Originally posted by thegoonden

I get a flashing dash in the upper left.

...

I don't know what video card you have, but if its nVidia, read this guys fix.

**thegoonden** · Mar 22, 2010, 10:16 PM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

It's intel video hardware, in an inspiron 1300. Don't think it's anything hardware related or they wouldn't spawn by hand.

Also running "setupcon" which I believe is what actually uses /etc/default/console-setup, reports no error yet makes no VT's.

Does anyone know how to ask apt "which package made this file"?

As I said, I'm very new to anything Debian derrived.

Truth be told, I will prob reinstall when the next release hits final......but it's not a very linux way to unflog a machine.

**thegoonden** · Mar 22, 2010, 11:02 PM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

I think we can forget it.
I did a little detective work, comparing the ubuntu (with kubuntu desktop) that's installed as a failsafe on my Dos-7 gaming machine, and there's no difference in /etc/init or /etc/init.d between the two machines (except that the ubuntu box has a gdm.conf).
I think guessed (correctly) that upstart is what installs the initscripts, and reinstalled it....no joy, same issue.

It looks like the winluser's way out of doing a reinstall may be the only way (I appreciate this is meant to be a winluser friendly distro, but that's just taking the P* LOL ).

I'm itching to do it now, but was wondering if there is a way of saving a list of packages I've installed so I can just re-install then tell it to go get all the stuff I have now?

**Snowhog** · Mar 22, 2010, 11:33 PM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

The following will generate a file named myinstalledpkgs.tx in your users home directory containing just the package names of all installed packages on your system:

Code:

dpkg -l | awk '{ print $2 }' > myinstalledpkgs.txt

**kubicle** · Mar 23, 2010, 01:30 AM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

Originally posted by thegoonden

I think guessed (correctly) that upstart is what installs the initscripts

Yes, init (upstart) is responsible for spawning the ttys.

It looks like the winluser's way out of doing a reinstall may be the only way

I wouldn't go that way just yet, simply because there are no guarantees they will work on a fresh installation either (once upgraded to the latest). There might be a bug that prevents ttys from starting on your machine during boot. Candidates for non active ttys could be the boot splash screens (although I can't remember whether karmic uses usplash or plymouth).

issuing the command service tty(n) start spawns the appropriate tty.

If that works, you can try (for now) to work around the issue by putting the commands to start your ttys in /etc/rc.local (the commands in this file are executed at the end of the boot process). If that will spawn the ttys, you could wait for Lucid (about a month away from release) and upgrade/reinstall with that and you'll should have a better chance of fixing the issue.

**thegoonden** · Mar 23, 2010, 04:04 AM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

I just tried upgrading to lucid, and dozens of packages failed. I think the system is totally wrecked.....and if it wasn't before, it is now, with half of lucid installed, but with no mount, or openssl or libc6.....the next reboot will be the last...it'll NEVER come back up.

Thanks anyway.

**oshunluvr** · Mar 23, 2010, 08:01 AM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

The OP mentioned that GDM worked and KDM didn't - I can't speak for GDM, but the active TTY's are defined in kdmrc:

Code:

StaticServers=:0
# List of on-demand displays. See StaticServers for syntax.
# Default is ""
ReserveServers=:1,:2,:3
# VTs to allocate to X-servers. A negative number means that the VT will be
# used only if it is free. If all VTs in this list are used up, the next free
# one greater than the last one in this list will be allocated.
# Default is ""
ServerVTs=-7
# TTYs (without /dev/) to monitor for activity while in console mode.
# Default is ""
ConsoleTTYs=tty1,tty2,tty3,tty4,tty5,tty6

**thegoonden** · Mar 23, 2010, 08:25 AM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

I just mentioned that the ubuntu instalation on another machine had a gdm.conf file present, because it originally had gnome as it's desktop.

Just gave up and did a fresh install of Lucid Beta1.

using the dselect method described here http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-later-393191/

to try and get all the same packags installed painlessly. I'll post back to menion if it works or hoses the system.

**thegoonden** · Apr 07, 2010, 10:21 PM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

FWIW, the method described in the above link worked really well....installed my new system, then installed all the same packages (at latest version) as I had previously.

**GreyGeek** · Apr 08, 2010, 09:49 AM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

Did you save your config files too, or just let the default configuration on installation take over?

**thegoonden** · Apr 08, 2010, 10:22 PM

Re: How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

Well I had only really messed with fstab and resolv.conf, everything else was in /home which persisted through the reinstall. Also, since there was some unspecified damage to the system, I felt that having to reset one or two things was better than risking having a pre-hosed new system

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How are VT's (TTY's) spawned? (and what package provides them)

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