# Full screen Terminal on Mac OS X



## ernestworthing (Jun 10, 2004)

Hi,

does anyone know how I can get a full-screen text console on Mac OS X? 

I know I can login as ">console" but I want a solution that will allow me to switch between the Aqua GUI and my text console.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

The only time i've seen that is when the logic board fried on my old iBook. It didnt load the GUI and threw me into the console. Full screen too. 
I dont think its possible to (easily) switch.


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## insertclevername (Apr 8, 2003)

Actually Jason H, what you probably saw was Open Firmware.


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## raferx (May 2, 2004)

Why?

What's the diff to just maxing the Console window?

Just curious.


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## ernestworthing (Jun 10, 2004)

raferx, it's hard to describe.  

I'm one of those people who never liked running a little xterm in X11 - I always switched to a virtual console when I needed to do cmd-line work.

A full-screen console is just somehow more comfortable. Plus I get to reclaim the space taken up by the menubar and the title bar. When you have a 12.1" screen, it is not insignicant.

On my machine, I habitually maximize most of my app windows, and I hide the dock. I just like apps to run in as big a window as they can - it just feels more comfortable. (though, if I had a 30" cinema display, I might change my habits


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## Hobart (May 11, 2005)

Hear hear, I would also love to have a way to have BSD / Linux-ish virtual consoles (fullscreen text) on OS X ...  has anyone found anything?


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## Vexel (Jan 30, 2005)

I did a little searching. And found nothing that will allow for full screen Vid. However! I did find a great little tool that is open source called "Desktop Manager" It gives you the Virtual Desktops like linux on OS X, and it's compatible with X.3 and X.4. There is also a developer build as well as a stable release.

http://desktopmanager.berlios.de/


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## elmer (Dec 19, 2002)

Here's a shot (for the original question - a full screen terminal) Try this. Some of these steps are a general outline. If you have trouble I may be able to provide more detail later, when I'm not at work 

Install Fink open source package manager.
Use it to install ratpoison.
Set your X11 preferences to use root window mode instead of rootless.
Set ratpoison as your window manager in the text config file in your home directory (.xinit or something?)
Also set that file to start an xterm.

I got the idea after reading an article called The Antidesktop on freashmeat.net. It says that ratpoison is a window manager wherein "Each window is the same size, the size of the screen. There are no title bars, no minimize buttons...".

Woah - I just realized that the original question was asked like a year ago. Well, hope someone still finds this interesting; I certainly did. In fact I think I'll go set this up sometime soon and do some C programming exercises, retro-style, or maybe browse the web with Lynx, or maybe trying some media player fullscreen...


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## Guest (May 12, 2005)

elmer said:


> Woah - I just realized that the original question was asked like a year ago. Well, hope someone still finds this interesting; I certainly did. In fact I think I'll go set this up sometime soon and do some C programming exercises, retro-style, or maybe browse the web with Lynx, or maybe trying some media player fullscreen...


For text based web browsing try links or elinks, I think they are both in fink and are much nicer than lynx  (frame support, backgroundable downloads, even color!)

Mark


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## elmer (Dec 19, 2002)

I got the full screen Terminal working, as I described.
The init file I needed to change was .xinitrc. If you don't have one in your Home, you can copy one from the /etc/X11/ tree.
ratpoison was only in Fink's unstable tree, so I had to follow their documentation to install just that one unstable package. (unstable just means untested)


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## Nitz (Jun 1, 2005)

elmer said:


> Set ratpoison as your window manager in the text config file in your home directory (.xinit or something?)
> Also set that file to start an xterm.



Could you please explain in a bit more detail these last 2 steps? I know I have to edit .xinitrc to use ratpoison, but I'm not sure what the given command is to start ratpoison. Also I have no idea what you meant in the last step


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## elmer (Dec 19, 2002)

Ok - for the .xinitrc file, what I first did is copy the global xinitrc file to .xinitrc in my home directory. Here's the command in Terminal:

```
cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc
```
If it's read-only, you might have to do this so you can edit it:

```
chmod u+w ~/.xinitrc
```
Then I edited that file and removed this line:

```
exec quartz-wm
```
and replaced it with these lines:

```
quartz-wm --only-proxy &
exec ratpoison
```
About that last step, just make sure this line is in the file (it should already be there, before the part you edited):

```
xterm &
```


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