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+<title>Virtual Terminals</title>
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+<tr>
+<th colspan="3" align="center">Slackware Linux Essentials</th>
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+
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+<td width="10%" align="left" valign="bottom"><a href="shell-bash.html"
+accesskey="P">Prev</a></td>
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+
+<div class="SECT1">
+<h1 class="SECT1"><a id="SHELL-VT" name="SHELL-VT">8.4 Virtual Terminals</a></h1>
+
+<p>So you're in the middle of working on something and you decide you need to do
+something else. You could just drop what you're doing and switch tasks, but this is a
+multi-user system, right? And you can log in as many times simultaneously as you want,
+right? So why should you have to do one thing at a time?</p>
+
+<p>You don't. We can't all have multiple keyboards, mice, and monitors for one machine;
+chances are most of us don't want them. Clearly, hardware isn't the solution. That leaves
+software, and Linux steps up on this one, providing &#8220;virtual terminals&#8221;, or
+&#8220;VTs&#8221;.</p>
+
+<p>By pressing <kbd class="USERINPUT">Alt</kbd> and a function key, you can switch
+between virtual terminals; each function key corresponds to one. Slackware has logins on
+6 VTs by default. <b class="KEYCAP">Alt</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">F2</b> will take you to the
+second one, <b class="KEYCAP">Alt</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">F3</b> to the third, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the function keys are reserved for X sessions. Each X session uses its own
+VT, beginning with the seventh (<b class="KEYCAP">Alt</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">F7</b>) and
+going up. When in X, the <b class="KEYCAP">Alt</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">Function key</b>
+combination is replaced with <b class="KEYCAP">Ctrl</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">Alt</b>+<b
+class="KEYCAP">Function</b>; so if you are in X and want to get back to a text login
+(without exiting your X session), <b class="KEYCAP">Ctrl</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">Alt</b>+<b
+class="KEYCAP">F3</b> will take you to the third. (<b class="KEYCAP">Alt</b>+<b
+class="KEYCAP">F7</b> will take you back, assuming you're using the first X session.)</p>
+
+<div class="SECT2">
+<h2 class="SECT2"><a id="AEN3024" name="AEN3024">8.4.1 Screen</a></h2>
+
+<p>But what about situations where there are no virtual terminals? What then?
+Fortunately, slackware includes a beautiful screen manager aptly named <tt
+class="COMMAND">screen</tt>. <tt class="COMMAND">screen</tt> is a terminal emulator that
+has virtual terminal like capabilities. Executing <tt class="COMMAND">screen</tt> flashes
+a brief introduction, then dumps to a terminal. Unlike the standard virtual terminals,
+<tt class="COMMAND">screen</tt> has its own commands. All <tt class="COMMAND">screen</tt>
+commands are prefixed with a <b class="KEYCAP">Crtl</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">A</b>
+keystroke. For example, <b class="KEYCAP">Ctrl</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">A</b>+<b
+class="KEYCAP">C</b> will create a new terminal session. <b class="KEYCAP">Ctrl</b>+<b
+class="KEYCAP">A</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">N</b> will switch to the next terminal. <b
+class="KEYCAP">Ctrl</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">A</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">P</b> switches to the
+previous terminal.</p>
+
+<p><tt class="COMMAND">screen</tt> also supports detaching and re-attaching to <tt
+class="COMMAND">screen</tt> sessions which is particularly useful for remote sessions via
+<tt class="COMMAND">ssh</tt> and <tt class="COMMAND">telnet</tt>, (more on those later).
+<b class="KEYCAP">Ctrl</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">A</b>+<b class="KEYCAP">D</b> will detach
+from the currently running screen. Executing <tt class="COMMAND">screen -r</tt> will list
+all currently running screen sessions you may reattach to.</p>
+
+<table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<pre class="SCREEN">
+<samp class="PROMPT">%</samp> <kbd class="USERINPUT">screen -r</kbd>
+There are several suitable screens on:
+ 1212.pts-1.redtail (Detached)
+ 1195.pts-1.redtail (Detached)
+ 1225.pts-1.redtail (Detached)
+ 17146.pts-1.sanctuary (Dead ???)
+Remove dead screens with 'screen -wipe'.
+Type "screen [-d] -r [pid.]tty.host" to resume one of them.
+</pre>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Running <tt class="COMMAND">screen -r 1212</tt> would reattach to the first screen
+listed. I mentioned earlier how useful this was for remote sessions. If I were to login
+to a remote slackware server via <tt class="COMMAND">ssh</tt>, and my connection was
+severed by some chance occurrence such as a local power failure, whatever I was doing at
+that moment would instantly perish, which can be a horrible thing for your server. Using
+<tt class="COMMAND">screen</tt> prevents this by detaching my session if my connection is
+dropped. Once my connection is restored, I can reattach to my screen session and resume
+right where I left off.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="NAVFOOTER">
+<hr align="LEFT" width="100%" />
+<table summary="Footer navigation table" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0"
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