CTRL + ALT + F7 shortcut

[aliquo93]

Can someone explain what this combination does? I mistakenly pressed it on Ubuntu 20.10 and it showed me a screen with the same output of fsck (“clean” and the number of blocks)... now I am worried that it actually ran fsck on the mounted partition... can someone explain me what this shortcut does?

[oldos2er]

Ctrl + Alt + F1 through F7 switch through TTYs. I believe the desktop GUI "lives" in F7.

[Impavidus]

ctrl+alt+F(1-7) allows you to switch between multiple consoles. One of them has the GUI, the others are text interfaces. The fsck output was left on one of them during the boot process. Nothing to worry about.

These consoles can be a nice way to fix your system when the GUI crashes.

[aliquo93]

But why if I press CTRL + ALT + F7 it gives me the fsck output?

EDIT: Sorry didn’t see the last reply

[tea for one]

Ctrl Alt F1 > Login Page
Ctrl Alt F2 > GUI Desktop
Ctrl Alt F3 > TTY3
Ctrl Alt F4 > TTY4
Ctrl Alt F5 > TTY5
Ctrl Alt F6 > TTY6

[DuckHook]

Ctrl Alt F1 > Login Page
Ctrl Alt F2 > GUI Desktop
Ctrl Alt F3 > TTY3
Ctrl Alt F4 > TTY4
Ctrl Alt F5 > TTY5
Ctrl Alt F6 > TTY6

It depends on the version. If I recall correctly, with Bionic, the Desktop was still F7.

[tea for one]

It depends on the version. If I recall correctly, with Bionic, the Desktop was still F7.

I don't have access to Bionic 18.04 but the OP mentioned 20.10.

Out of curiosity, are the keys the same for all the Ubuntu flavours (assuming the release is the same i.e. Ubuntu 20.10 & Kubuntu 20.10 etc)?

[DuckHook]

…but the OP mentioned 20.10.

Of course. My bad.

Out of curiosity, are the keys the same for all the Ubuntu flavours (assuming the release is the same i.e. Ubuntu 20.10 & Kubuntu 20.10 etc)?

Good question. I assume they are—after all, the console function should be tied to the base system and not the DE. But I've nuked my old VMs of alternate flavours so can't test right away.

[deadflowr]

The display managers gdm3 (Ubuntu's default) and sddm (Kubuntu/Lubuntu's default) use tty1/vt1 for the login screen.
Older Ubuntu and some flavors use/used lightdm, which used tty7/vt7 for the login screen.

As far as I remember gdm3 loads user session in a new console (vt2 and higher).
I think sddm runs much the same as gdm3.

And lightdm loads the first user session in the same tty/vt as the login screen.

I'm not sure which desktops or flavors still use lightdm by default.
Maybe Xubuntu?

I know unity desktop runs nicer in lightdm.
But that's probably more ascetically pleasing to me in a truthiness kind of way.

[Impavidus]

Xubuntu 20.04 still puts the GUI on tty7.