Where is the terminal view of tty7
If you run fuser /dev/tty7
, you'll see that the X11 server is actually holding that TTY device for itself.
The X11 server is not running parallel to virtual console 7, but actually in virtual console 7. It is switching that virtual console to graphics mode and using it.
By itself, a virtual console is just a black screen with maybe a cursor blinking in the top left corner. If a virtual console is otherwise unoccupied, you can use it by e.g. piping logs or other important messages to it.
There are multiple programming interfaces for a virtual console: the default one is a TTY emulator, which can be used to run a getty
process to allow command-line logins. But on modern systems, there is usually also the frame-buffer interface (either VESA SVGA or UEFI GOP). If the GPU driver kernel modules are loaded, there is also kernel modesetting and Direct Rendering Interface (DRI). If possible, the X11 server will use DRI and kernel modesetting, but it can fall back to the framebuffer interface or even to old-school direct hardware access if necessary.
You can’t, your X server is running there. It takes over the virtual terminal.
Your terminals 1 through 6 are running a getty
variant, and that’s what starts the login process and then the shell running in the virtual terminal. But you can’t have a getty
-based session and a display server in the same virtual terminal.