Baslinux mailing list

[qwms-avib AT dea.spamcon.org]

James Miller wrote:
> 
> Linux typically allows 7 such virtual terminals, 
> while BL2 seems to be limited to 5.  

The ramdisk version has 3.  The HD version has 4.
Slackware (I think) has 6.

> Having run into situations lately where I've needed 
> to shutdown apps to free up a virtual terminal 

Feel free to add more if you wish.  Just edit /etc/inittab
and add c5, c6, etc.  

> I've begun to wonder what the relative advantages/
> disadvantages of running console apps in this way 
> are as opposed to simply starting icewm and running 
> those programs under xterminals there.  

Virtual terminals are significantly faster than xterms.

> Steven has noted in the past that, at least in the 
> case of X apps (Netscape was his focus, I believe), 
> running such an app in a virtual terminal using xinit 
> was less efficient than running it under icewm.  

The virtual terminal was not the issue.  In one case
I ran Netscape (from .xinitrc) on X without a wm.  
In the other, I ran icewm (from .xinitrc) and Netscape
ran on that.  The use of a wm seemed to make Netscape
more stable.

Cheers,
Steven