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I was trying to execute Node Exec on my computer, it was not working then I tried this combination ctrl+alt+f8, it opened a black terminal, what is it for?

Rebecca J. Stones
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Euclides
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1 Answers1

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In systemd ctrl+alt+f8 through ctrl+alt+f12 do nothing and show an empty screen. The first six (F1-F6) show classic text based terminal. F7 (some distros use F1 or F8) is used to show the desktop.

You can enable F8, F9, ... F12 to do the same as F1 (see /etc/systemd/system/getty.target.wants/getty@tty1.service) , you can also add a command to those (see below). And you can also add another desktop to a function key: at the login screen you can often pick a manager; each of those you could add.

Example using htop as a command shown on F8:

Create htop.service:

[Unit]
Description=htop on tty8

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/htop
StandardInput=tty
StandardOutput=tty
TTYPath=/dev/tty8


[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

and

sudo cp htop.service /etc/systemd/system
systemctl start htop

and tty8 will show results from htop. Works for anything you put on ExecStart and that shows a result to TTYPath. Think journalctl, dmesg, sar, a directory watcher, tail -f.

Rinzwind
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