I’m using openSUSE 11.1 with Gnome on Dell Latitude D520. Been using Suse and openSUSE for some years now and was always able to get virtual terminals with ctrl+alt+F1, ctrl+alt+F2 etc. This doesn’t work for me with 11.1 though. Is there something I need to do to activate these now? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks
I’m having the same issue, even at the login screen.
I do not have 11.1 running myself, but these virtual terminals are run by statements in /etc/inittab. You could check if they are there:
# getty-programs for the normal runlevels
# <id>:<runlevels>:<action>:<process>
# The "id" field MUST be the same as the last
# characters of the device (after "tty").
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --noclear tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6
Many thanks hcw for your reply. The lines were there in /etc/inittab :
getty-programs for the normal runlevels
<id>:<runlevels>:<action>:<process>
The “id” field MUST be the same as the last
characters of the device (after “tty”).
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --noclear tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6
But I’m still having the same problem. If you have any further thoughts I’d be most grateful.
But do they run? Check with ps.
ps -ef|grep tty
root 2992 2958 0 10:04 tty7 00:01:17 /usr/bin/Xorg -br -nolisten tcp :0 vt7 -auth /var/lib/xdm/authdir/authfiles/A:0-7wHvrF
root 3936 1 0 10:04 tty1 00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty --noclear tty1
root 3937 1 0 10:04 tty2 00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty tty2
root 3940 1 0 10:04 tty3 00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty tty3
root 3941 1 0 10:04 tty4 00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty tty4
root 3942 1 0 10:04 tty5 00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty tty5
root 3943 1 0 10:04 tty6 00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty tty6
root 9963 9936 0 17:30 pts/1 00:00:00 grep tty
boven:~ #
Thanks hcvv. The processes are running according to ps. Do you think it’s possible the keyboard shortcuts are to blame, that they’ve been taken up by something else? I can’t see anything in the Gnome keyboard shortcuts that uses these combinations though and the key combinations don’t seem to do anything at all.
You got my intention. First I wanted tyo be sure that from the system side the config is OK and that the processes are running.
My conclusion is now the same a yours. The CTRL-ALT-Fx keys are for some reason not functioning as desired. Now I am not a Gnome user, so helping you from here might be better done by someone else.
The only thing that comes to my mind now for a test is CNTRL-ALT-BackSpace as that should stop your X-session and restart it.
Also, when you have KDE installed, try running KDE and test it there. When you don’t have KDE installed it is probably not worth to do the installation (however it is very easy) at this moment where we still may hope someone sheds light on this from the Gnome side.
I have the same problem - not working ctrl+alt+Fn and ctrl+alt+F1 in KDE, nor in Gnome.
Now it works!?! I installed KDE 4 and tried it with that. At first ctrl+alt+F1-F4 changed the desktop (1-4 respectively) and I couldn’t get the virtual terminals with any of the normal shortcuts. However this morning I booted up into KDE and ctrl+alt+F1 etc gave me the virtual terminals! I rebooted into Gnome and the virtual terminals now come up as they always did. I have no idea what has happened. I haven’t installed any updates and haven’t done anything as far as I know. If anyone is having the same problem try installing KDE 4 (KDE4 Desktop Environment and KDE4 Base System in the Patterns section of YaST Software Manager. Boot into KDE4 and if it doesn’t work reboot into KDE4 once more (I can’t remember if I did this twice or once). Maybe installing KDE4 and booting alters some configuration file somewhere?
Thanks to hcvv for your replies.
I was just about to create a new post for this. I have the same issue with KDE4 and I have the latest Beta. Basically ctrl+alt+f1 gets me to the framebuffer console vie (I can see all the services started at boot) but gives me no login, and the rest (f2-f6) give me a blank screen. I can telinit from a konsole shell or use konsole for most things, but it’s a big problem when something like a nvidia driver upgrade goes foul, I can’t switch to konsole to fix it. Last time I had to load a system rescue cd, mount the partition and change the xorg file manually…:\
I hope someone can give me a more detailed idea of how to solve it, because installing kde4 certainly isn’t the answer 
Glad it works for you. But I am with solphonic that this is not a very satisfying solution.
@solphonic, I suggest you post in the Pre-realease/Beta forum.
I do agree, it’s not a good solution. And now that I’ve turned my computer on again, I’m back to square one: no virtual terminals! Something worked when I turned the computer on this morning that is not working now. I’m afraid this seems to be beyond my capabilities. I’d be grateful if a thread is started elsewhere that you could flag that here so that I and others can follow it.
Hi all.
I too confirm that in 11.1 Gnome I don’t have the Ctrl+Alt+<key> functionalities: neither the virtual terminals nor the X restart through Ctrl+Alt+Backspace.
That’s an annoying issue!