Virtual consoles on Mac OSX: is it possible?

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Level 1

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Virtual consoles on Mac OSX: is it possible?

I found just now this section in the forum!
Great!
Anyway, do you now, if it's possible to enable ctrl altf1-6 switch to virtual console?
Thanks in advance.

Mac Book Pro 2,4 Pen, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Jul 4, 2009 3:27 PM

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Answer 1

doppiabeo Author

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Jul 4, 2009 3:50 PM in response to doppiabeo

Googleing around I found that BSD, like every unix linux system have this capability built-in. So I argued that even Mac OSX should be able to do the trick. I also found that some of the configuration of this feature depends on /etc/ttys, that in OSX exists and seems quite similar to the example given with BSD. If you ask for the manual with man ttys there's also a page that describes this capability. Any better ideas, or anthing that could work?

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Answer 2

Jul 4, 2009 6:11 PM in response to doppiabeo

There is no alt.

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Answer 3

Camelot

Level 9

54,333 points

Jul 4, 2009 9:23 PM in response to Bang A. Lore

There is no alt.

Yes there is. It's typically called the Option key on Macs, but if you look closely at your keyboard you'll see it also says alt for those platform converts. 🙂

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Answer 4

Camelot

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Jul 4, 2009 9:25 PM in response to doppiabeo

Please define your interpretation of 'virtual console'.

It means different things to different people, so it makes sense to ensure we're talking on the same level.

If you mean desktops, you can do this but you first need to enable Spaces (System Preferences -> Exposé & Spaces -> Spaces) to define how many desktops you want, along with the keyboard equivalents to switch between them.

If you mean separate login sessions for multiple users, there's no built-in support for this, since Mac OS X is geared towards a single GUI user session.

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Answer 5

doppiabeo Author

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Jul 5, 2009 1:20 AM in response to doppiabeo

I've alredy got Spaces enabled. Thanks.

---If you mean separate login sessions for multiple users, there's no built-in support for this, since Mac OS X is geared towards a single GUI user session. ---

Yes, it's that what I mean, more or less.
You're telling me that OSX is geared towards single GUI user session; this is the same on every BSD and Linux system (at least by default). In fact you can't initialize more than one Window server, also beacuse each window server is directly bound to the graphic system. But in those systems you can use "virtual" consoles, that are an emulation of the earlier console system of the unix system, that means that you can switch through the GUI user session and, 6 different and indipendent console session (with no graphic interface, they are just terminals), in wich you can log in and act as on an old fashined Unix system, and use all its own powerfull features (ps, kill, top, netstat, ssh, ftp, wget, macports etc etc). It's considered one of the basic features on BSD, not just a legacy with the past, and I used it a lot of times (it's really helpfull sometimes).

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Answer 6

BobHarris

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Jul 5, 2009 6:04 AM in response to doppiabeo

You can use "Fast User Switching" to have multiple GUI sessions, however there is no Hotkey switching. You use the menubar to switch. You enable Fast User Switching from System Preferences -> Accounts.

From a terminal session you can ssh into different users and have command line sessions as whoever you want


ssh user1@localhost
<command-T>
ssh user2@localhost
<command-T>
ssh user3@localhost
etc...

For terminal sessions, youc an use command-1, command-2, command-3 ... to switch between Terminal tabs.

But I do not think any of these things are exactly what you are looking for.

Mac OS X may use some FreeBSD components on top of the Carnige Mellon MACH kernel, but its core GUI is NOT X-Windows (X11 is just a sidecar package on Mac OS X provided so Open Source packages and other X11 systems can be used with Mac OS X).

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Answer 7

Camelot

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54,333 points

Jul 5, 2009 1:17 PM in response to doppiabeo

ut in those systems you can use "virtual" consoles, that are an emulation of the earlier console system of the unix system, that means that you can switch through the GUI user session and, 6 different and indipendent console session (with no graphic interface, they are just terminals)

Then fire up /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app.

You can have as many shell/terminal processes running as you like. Each one can be running as a different user (via su).

Or, of course, remote users can log in via SSH to get a shell over the network without touching the local GUI.

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Answer 8

doppiabeo Author

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Jul 6, 2009 5:07 AM in response to Camelot

The utility of the virtual console is that you can work with them also when everything went bad with the windows server. They're started BEFORE Aqua, not inside Aqua.

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Answer 9

BobHarris

Level 9

53,003 points

Jul 6, 2009 6:11 AM in response to doppiabeo

The utility of the virtual console is that you can work with them also when everything went bad with the windows server. They're started BEFORE Aqua, not inside Aqua.

Then, No, you do not have them.

Although there have been times I've used ssh from another system into my Mac when the GUI was not longer operational.

As has been mentioned before. Mac OS X is not a BSD distribution. It does take the MACH kernel, the FreeBSD Unix APIs and many of the FreeBSD commands and utilities, plus other Open Source utilities, but on that base, Apple has created its own I/O subsystem, its own GUI and a lot of other kernel stuff that do not exist in any other BSD, Linux, or other Unix distribution. And conversely, there are features in those other distributions that do not exist in Mac OS X.

Message was edited by: BobHarris

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Answer 10

doppiabeo Author

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Jul 6, 2009 6:21 AM in response to BobHarris

So sad to hear.
Anyway thank you.
You've earned the solved point. 😉

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Answer 11

Camelot

Level 9

54,333 points

Jul 6, 2009 8:29 AM in response to doppiabeo

The utility of the virtual console is that you can work with them also when everything went bad with the windows server. They're started BEFORE Aqua, not inside Aqua

That's why I asked specifically what feature were you looking for. All the above suggestions could be interpreted as 'virtual consoles' in one form or another.

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Answer 12

doppiabeo Author

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Jul 13, 2009 3:02 PM in response to Camelot

Sorry, I thought I was clear and plain.
G.

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Answer 13

Oct 8, 2009 8:50 AM in response to doppiabeo

This needs to be implemented. Just this morning i had to ssh from my iphone to kill front row. This is not the first time i have had to do that.

But from all i can find virtual console ONLY means virtual physical consoles. Everything else is terminal emulation. And its called Virtual Desktops in a gui sense not virtual console.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualconsole%28PC%29

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