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[<keesan2 AT cyberspace.org>]

I discovered, in the process of getting mdacon to work (it displays two
console programs at the same time on two virtual terminals, each on a
different monitor) that you can have more virtual terminals than you have
F keys.  chvt 15 will change you to VT 15 (there is no F15).  Or you can
use the right alt key (I don't have that) and that adds 12 to the F keys.

Mdacon was set up to assign VT14 to the Hercules/TTL monitor and to access
VT14 you needed to hit Right-Alt-F2 but chvt 14 also works.  (I was able
to remap VT3 and VT4 for use with Hercules instead by using a switch when
installing the mdacon module). 

Each extra VT takes up RAM even when not in use (about 400K when not in
use and double when in use?).

Another way to run more than four console programs at one time is to
download and install screen (screen 3.9) which I think I found at
Slackware 8 but it runs with Slackware 7.  You can run 10 programs on 10
'screens' in one virtual terminal and toggle between them and even cut and
paste between them without a mouse.  You need to run 'screen -x' to cut
and paste between virtual terminals.  I can now cut and paste between my
two monitors.  Ratpoison is modelled on 'screen'.  The man page is sort of
hard to understand but I think there is a simple help screen.  To toggle
between two screens you use a simple command like Ctrl-C Ctrl-C or you can
specify the number of the screen if you have several.

If you have managed to set yourself up a free account at my bbs you can
try out screen there and read the man page.  It is an old program.

I have only tried this  for running two copies of pico or joe and pasting
between them.  It ought to work for running two browsers.  Let me know.

Screen was suggested by the extremely helpful person at Linux Gazette who
helped me get mdacon to install without modprobe or telinit (which BL2
does not have).

On Thu, 15 May 2003 qwms-avib AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> 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.

Without any window manager, flwriter crashed (it complained about window
definitions) and opera forced me to use a mouse instead of Enter key in
one place.


> Cheers,
> Steven
> 
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