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Ethunxxx
Asked: 2018-05-18 03:47:34 +0800 CST

Access terminal from login screen on Ubuntu 18.04

  • 772

I would like to open the terminal from the login screen. In previous Ubuntu releases I just used Ctrl+Alt+F1. However, when I press Ctrl+Alt+F1 in 18.04, nothing happens, the login screen just stays as it is. All other combinations with F-keys (F2 to F12) also have no effect whatsoever.

What key shortcut do I have to press to open the terminal from the login screen?

shortcut-keys virtual-console 18.04

2 Answers

  1. chvt [n]

    Source: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trusty/man1/chvt.1.html

    And while in a tty, shift + {left,right} arrow key to change screens.

    This can also be an issue with your login manager preventing the process. For example, some Ubuntu based distributions use SDDM as the default manager and there is a bug that can prevent changing ttys. A solution would be to disable your login manager and either starting Xorg with startx (with the appropriate commands in ~/.xinitrc) or systemctl start your-login-manager.

    # systemctl disable sddm
# shutdown -hr now
...
login:
password:
$ startx
    or
$ sudo systemctl start sddm
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  2. I had the same problem with ubuntu 16.04 on fresh install. Later everything started working. Try following:

    sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

    Run 'Software and Updates' and reboot

    I knew answer is useless after so late but may help others

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