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pschmidt
Asked: 2011-07-28 12:52:52 +0800 CST

How to swap X-Server with Emacs org-mode?

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I'm quite impressed of emacs' org-mode. So I want to use it for note-taking during lectures. To use it "distraction-free" my idea is the following:

I want to register a bash-command, which swaps the x-server session with tty2 and starts emacs with its org-mode. Is it possible to pass my credentials from the x-server session to tty2 (optional)?

xorg

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    By default tty2 is occupied by init for getty. You can probably change this by removing /etc/init/tty2.conf, but that was too adventurous for me and the instructions here are for tty9 instead (which is by default unallocated).

    First, put these commands to ${HOME}/bin/orgmode.sh or other file:

    #!/bin/bash

TTY=/dev/tty9
USER=pschmidt

/usr/bin/sudo chown ${USER}.tty ${TTY}
/usr/bin/sudo chmod 620 ${TTY}
( /usr/bin/sudo -u ${USER} /usr/bin/emacs -t ${TTY} -nw ) &
/usr/bin/sudo chvt 9

    (Use a different value for USER as necessary.)

    Then, execute this bash command (not sure what you meant by register):

    sudo time getty -n -l "${HOME}/bin/orgmode.sh" tty9 230400

    Some caveats:

    • The time command (or a similar dummy) is needed to prevent sudo terminal rearrangements from placing emacs on your current terminal
    • The speed value of 230400 is there only because getty requires it, other values probably work also
    • If sudo needs to ask your password and that messes up things, you can first run sudo echo and then the above command.
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