Virtual Console

Introduction

 The virtual console project will provide virtual console feature to Solaris. This will improve user experience extremely,
 especially for developers and administrators.

Goal 

• multiple consoles
• virtual console interface for switch between Xserver and consoles

Status 

The main task of virtual console project has been accomplished since snv_124.
It is supported on X86 systems. It is currently not supported on Sparc platforms
due to lacking of visual_io support in the modern graphic drivers.
We are now fixing some leftover bugs which prevent virtual console from being enabled by default.
If you want to try this feature, you can enable it manually (see instructions below).
Please be at ease, those leftover bugs do not impact end user experiences seriously.

Instructions (How to Enable Virtual Console on Your System)

Please follow the procedure to enable it if you want to use this long
waited feature, and please read through before you take any action:

As root or privileged user:

# svcadm enable vtdaemon
# svcadm enable console-login:vt2
# svcadm enable console-login:vt3
# svcadm enable console-login:vt4
# svcadm enable console-login:vt5
# svcadm enable console-login:vt6
# svccfg -s vtdaemon setprop options/hotkeys=true
# svcadm refresh vtdaemon
# svcadm restart vtdaemon

I guess most people are unlikely to use the lock screen feature
(which will lock up your screen while you switch to other VTs),
you can disable it by:

# svccfg -s vtdaemon setprop options/secure=false
# svcadm refresh vtdaemon
# svcadm restart vtdaemon

If you are doing the above in X session, please log out and wait for Xorg
to restart. And then you will be able to switch between virtual console
terminals and X sessions via hotkeys (Alt + Ctrl + F#).

By default the first 6 virtual console terminals are reserved for console
login sessions, so Xorg will start on the 7th virtual console terminal.

Documents 

• virtual console spec

• virtual console manpage

Discussion

• mailto: vconsole-discuss@opensolaris.org