[vox-tech] console question

[Mark K. Kim]

I always thought /dev/console refers to the current active console so you
have some device you can communicate with if you need to communicate with
the current console via some device without knowing its tty.  Some quick
testing (echo 'Hello' > /dev/console) shows this is true on Linux console
but not under xterm.  I've done this under PERL to write a menu-driven
program that runs in place of mgetty.

Anyone have a better explanation for /dev/console?

-Mark


On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:

> does anybody know what the precise difference is between
>
>    /dev/console (5, 1)
>
> and
>
>    /dev/ttyX (4, X)
>
> i've seen a bunch of things on google about this which i just don't
> believe.
>
> char major numbers 4 and 5 are listed as both TTY devices (actually,
> major number 5 is an "alternate" TTY device).
>
> anybody know what the difference is between the "system console" and
> "virtual console"?
>
> i was thinking of adding the line:
>
>    10:12345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 console
>
> and rerunning init, just to see what would happen, but i'm running an
> important job on lucifer and don't want to experiment on satan...   ;)
>
> thanks,
> pete
>
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-- 
Mark K. Kim
http://www.cbreak.org/
PGP key available upon request.