Ctrl+Alt+f9 making screen go black??

[Scroopy]

Hello. I was attempting to set up Flameshot as a screenshotting app. I am used to Lightshot and wanted similar functionality. I attempted to set the screenshot hotkey to Ctrl+Alt+F9. Upon pressing those keys, my steam deck seemingly shut off. It won't wake up with a simple power button press and the only thing I can do is hold down the power to restart it. What gives? I searched my shortcuts and Ctrl+F9 is something about widgets, but shouldn't turn the entire deck off. Anyone know?

It also seems I can't use Ctrl+Alt+[w/e] as shortcut keys. Is that a linux thing? Thanks.

[tfk]

Yes. Switching between virtual terminals. Ctrl alt and f1 and so forth. Don't know how it is configured on the Deck.

[Nathan]

Yes, it's a Linux thing. It should probably be disabled for the sake of steamOS simplicity.

[Scroopy]

Publicado originalmente por Nathan:

Yes, it's a Linux thing. It should probably be disabled for the sake of steamOS simplicity.

Thank you for the fast answer! That definitely answers my question. Also it sort of speaks to how Valve might benefit by adding some Linux flavored how-to's in desktop mode, similar to the first start tutorials of game mode.

Thanks again!

[Scroopy]

Publicado originalmente por tfk:

Yes. Switching between virtual terminals. Ctrl alt and f1 and so forth. Don't know how it is configured on the Deck.

Thanks for the answer. What does this mean though? What makes a terminal virtual? I understand CLI basics, but I do not understand why switching to a different terminal would make the entire Steam Deck screen go black. Would it be possible to shed light on this? Or maybe a better question is how to undo or swap out of the "virtual terminal"? I also assume by what you said that there are 9 virtual terminals, F1-F9. Why 9? What are they for?

[Scroopy]

https://www.guru99.com/unix-virtual-terminal.html#:~:text=Virtual%20terminals%20are%20CLIs%20which,use%20mouse%20with%20virtual%20terminals

I found this, but it says there are 6 virtual terminals. It also doesn't list F9 as one of them. Still confused what Ctrl+Alt+F9 is truly doing..

[Scroopy]

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=381560

It appears to be a long-standing Linux bug. Fantastic, lol.

[Prezidentas]

Virtual as in it's not a separate "device". Imagine 1970s when computers were in a basement and the terminals for it were all around the building. You have multiple virtual terminals so you could have multiple sessions at the same time.
Everything you do on the steam deck is on one of these virtual terminals. Your graphical user interface is running on it too. When you switch over, you should be presented a console terminal with a logon prompt, from which you could login. Is it just black on the Steam Deck?

[Prezidentas]

Publicado originalmente por Scroopy:

https://www.guru99.com/unix-virtual-terminal.html#:~:text=Virtual%20terminals%20are%20CLIs%20which,use%20mouse%20with%20virtual%20terminals

I found this, but it says there are 6 virtual terminals. It also doesn't list F9 as one of them. Still confused what Ctrl+Alt+F9 is truly doing..

My computer has seven...

[Scroopy]

Publicado originalmente por Škoda 14Tr:

Virtual as in it's not a separate "device". Imagine 1970s when computers were in a basement and the terminals for it were all around the building. You have multiple virtual terminals so you could have multiple sessions at the same time.
Everything you do on the steam deck is on one of these virtual terminals. Your graphical user interface is running on it too. When you switch over, you should be presented a console terminal with a logon prompt, from which you could login. Is it just black on the Steam Deck?

IDK what you mean by "switch over" this was all done in desktop mode, but i found out there is indeed a bug on linux. Feel free to try it, Ctrl+Alt+F9 makes the steam deck screen turn off in desktop mode. You can get it back by using ctrl alt F7 or F8 though.

[bean]

Publicado originalmente por Scroopy:

Also it sort of speaks to how Valve might benefit by adding some Linux flavored how-to's in desktop mode, similar to the first start tutorials of game mode.
Thanks again!

wouldn't that be absolutely fantastic?
there are already some educational flatpacks that show up in discover's main tabs and these are open so, at the very minimum, they could point users in that direction...

but can you imagine an 'intro to linux desktop' getting the Valve treatment


get a hoovy or Wheatley to Clippy for users on the desktop!
get GLaDOS to handle the error/warnings/admin msg

on completion: an fmv of Gordon and Gabe in the jeep scene from HL2 escaping a giant windows update hell-bent on moving the start menu all the way to the right and turning the taskbar into charms

[Markus Strong]

It is as others have said, it is left over from old days of Terminal Access ports that would have a dumb terminal connected to a mainframe through a Terminal Connector. The Virtual part of Virtual Terminal, means that it's software driven, not hardware driven. And the last part, is that it isn't a Bug. Just like there are multiple Text based Terminals available VT-1 -> VT-6, Xorg/XFree allocate a Virtual Terminal on 7 onwards, to allow multiple Session Logins on the same desktop, without killing out another user. This feature is no longer used, but if you have multiple users logged into the same machine, a VT-7 -> VT-XX would be assigned to the Xorg/XFree desktop for each user to have open. The keyboard Access shortcut, is Ctrl+Alt+F1-F12.