Login or Register to Ask a Question and Join Our Community


UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Somebody Help Me

 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Somebody Help Me
# 8  
Old 03-05-2001
I think most UNIX folks use X as their desktop and then use X Terminals for command lines. If you use a basic console you are limited to the console unless you use the virtual consoles (like in Linux) where you can shift from console to console using the F(function) (or similar) keys.

However, in most X based desktops you have much more control over your command line terminals (xterms). So, if are going to do a bunch of compiling and working on a lot of different projects, having a desktop to launch X terminals makes life much easier.

On the other hand, if you are just running a server for your web, firewall, ftp, mail or other network service, then there may be little benefit to using the extra memory on your X environment.

Since you are just learning, you need to also learn the X environment, including X server and other X related utilities sooner-than-later. X is an integral part of all UNIX environments and helps teach many essentials too.

This does not mean that you should use X GUIs to change directories and play in your filesystem (like Windows Explorer); using command line utilties like find and cd to explore the filesystem is better and more efficient, IMHO. However, having many open X Terms can be very helpful if you like to multitask and do many things at once. In other words, you can be a command line guru via the X environment. That is what most people do.

[Edited by Neo on 03-05-2001 at 09:37 PM]
 
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread
Login or Register to Ask a Question

LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

console

CONSOLE(4)							Linux User's Manual							CONSOLE(4)

NAME

       console - console terminal and virtual consoles

DESCRIPTION

       A  Linux  system  has  up to 63 virtual consoles (character devices with major number 4 and minor number 1 to 63), usually called /dev/ttyn
       with 1 <= n <= 63.  The current console is also addressed by /dev/console or /dev/tty0, the character device with major number 4 and  minor
       number  0.   The  device  files	/dev/*	are  usually created using the script MAKEDEV, or using mknod(1), usually with mode 0622 and owner
       root.tty.

       Before kernel version 1.1.54 the number of virtual consoles was compiled into the kernel (in tty.h: #define NR_CONSOLES	8)  and  could	be
       changed by editing and recompiling.  Since version 1.1.54 virtual consoles are created on the fly, as soon as they are needed.

       Common  ways  to  start a process on a console are: (a) tell init(8) (in inittab(5)) to start a getty(8) on the console; (b) ask open(1) to
       start a process on the console; (c) start X - it will find the first unused console, and display its output  there.   (There  is  also  the
       ancient doshell(8).)

       Common  ways  to  switch consoles are: (a) use Alt+Fn or Ctrl+Alt+Fn to switch to console n; AltGr+Fn might bring you to console n+12 [here
       Alt and AltGr refer to the left and right Alt keys, respectively]; (b) use Alt+RightArrow or Alt+LeftArrow to cycle through  the  presently
       allocated  consoles; (c) use the program chvt(1).  (The key mapping is user settable, see loadkeys(1); the above mentioned key combinations
       are according to the default settings.)

       The command deallocvt(1) (formerly disalloc) will free the memory taken by the screen buffers for consoles that no longer have any  associ-
       ated process.

PROPERTIES

       Consoles carry a lot of state. I hope to document that some other time.	The most important fact is that the consoles simulate vt100 termi-
       nals.  In particular, a console is reset to the initial state by printing the two characters ESC c.  All escape sequences can be  found	in
       console_codes(4).

FILES

       /dev/console
       /dev/tty*

SEE ALSO

       charsets(4), console_codes(4), console_ioctl(4), mknod(1), tty(4), ttys(4), getty(8), init(8), chvt(1), open(1), deallocvt(1), loadkeys(1),
       resizecons(8), consolechars(8), mapscrn(8).

Console tools							    28 Oct 1997 							CONSOLE(4)