The Linux Console

In the early days of Linux, when you booted up your system you would see a login prompt on your monitor, and that's all. As mentioned earlier, this is called the Linux console. It was the only place you could enter commands for the system.

With modern Linux systems, when the Linux system starts it automatically creates several virtual consoles. A virtual console is a terminal session that runs in memory on the Linux system. Instead of having several dumb terminals connected to the PC, most Linux distributions start seven (or sometimes even more) virtual consoles that you can access from the single PC keyboard and monitor.

In most Linux distributions, you can access the virtual consoles using a simple keystroke combination. Usually you must hold down the Ctl+Alt key combination, and then press a function key (F1 through F8) for the virtual console you want to use. Function key F1 produces virtual console 1, key F2 produces virtual console 2, and so on.