LINUX
COMMANDS
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Virtual terminals and multiple X sessions
Another name for the console is a virtual terminal
(or virtual console). In all there are six. To access
each, press Alt+F1 through to Alt+F6.
Unless you chose a graphical log-in screen, you begin at
the first virtual terminal.
Virtual terminals are great for say issuing commands at
one terminal, running Pine (an e-mail client) on another,
running Lynx (a text-based Internet browser) on another,
and running Vi (a text editor) on a fourth.
$ startx - start X
To begin X, from the console, enter:
startx
From X you can then press Ctrl+Alt+Fn
(where n is 1-6) to return to that virtual
terminal. Any virtual terminal, X was started from, will
become tied-up for the duration of that X session.
From any virtual terminal you can press Alt+F7
to move back into X. (Or Alt+F8 to move
back in the second X session, Alt+F9 for
the third, and Alt+F10 for the fourth.)
To begin a second X session, enter:
startx -- :1
It's a 1, because startx is short for:
startx -- :0
In all you can likely have four X sessions running simultaneously
(depending on memory). To begin a third, enter:
startx -- :2
...and for a fourth, enter:
startx -- :3
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