The graphics chip is probably relevant. FWIW I can't Ctrl-Alt-Fn to any Virtual Console (I just get a black screen, no login prompt). I have a nVidia graphics chip. There are many reports on the Internet of trouble with VC and nVidia and some other graphics chips. Cheers, Cliff On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 2:52 AM, Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote: > OK, some more information: > > I rebooted to a non-xen kernel (2.6.18-348.1.1.el5), and the problem > remains, so it is not xen or a xen kernel issue. The machine has an AMD > 64-bit processor (AMD Sempron(tm) Processor LE-1300), if that makes any > difference. I have a LD450 keyboard (DEC VT220 flavored ps2 keyboard). > The keyboard does work: the X server properly intercepts Ctrl-Alt-Fn and > does a proper chvt call. The *kernel* itself is not handling > Ctrl-Alt-Fn. (It is handling Ctrl-Alt-Delete, but I suspect that is > something completely different.) > > My 32-bit laptop, running kernel 2.6.18-348.1.1.el5 is working just fine > -- the kernel there is properly handling Ctrl-Alt-Fn and switches > between consoles without problems. > > Oh, both machines boot to runlevel 3 and I use startx to fire up X (I > loath graphical logins). > > At Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:26:14 -0400 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote: > >> >> I am not sure what I did, but for some reason Ctrl-Alt-F? bindings are >> broken on 64-bit xen desktop machine (but not on my laptop (32-bit, no >> xen)). Both machines are (mostly) up-to-date and running CentOS 5.9. >> I rarely hop to different Virtual Consoles (eg Ctrl-Alt-F1 ... >> Ctrl-Alt-F7), but today I wanted to go to the main console to watch >> some kernel verbage (I was checking something with hot-swap SATA disk). >> I discovered that I could not switch back to my X11 session >> (Ctrl-Alt-F7)! I did some googling, but did not find anything. So far >> as I can tell, I can switch to one of the other VT (Ctrl-Alt-Fn) *from* >> VT7 (my X11 session), but cannot then switch to any other VT from >> there, using the Ctrl-Alt-F? key bindings. The chvt command works, but >> the keybindings don't. It is most strange. I know this used to work >> (and still does work just fine on my laptop, running much the same >> system, including the same X11 configuration, with the same desktop >> setup (plain fvwm in MWM compatibity mode, same keybindings, etc.). >> Other than different video cards (and thus different X11 drivers) and >> 32-bit vs 64-bit and with xen virtualization on the 64-bit desktop box, >> the system setups are virtually identical. >> > > -- > Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com > Deepwoods Software -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ > () ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail > /\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments > > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos