Reverting from Ctrl - Alt - F1

Question

I tried to install an nvidia driver and there was an error saying I must not be in an X terminal when doing so. So I did a Ctrl+Alt+F1.

The resulting terminal did not allow the nvidia driver to be installed and showed the same error message. How do I revert back to the Unity GUI?

Related (but not a duplicate): What does “Ctrl + Alt + F12” do? — Eliah Kagan, Jul 26 '14 at 23:29
Thanks, @EliahKagan! Useful comments are so seldom upvoted on StackExchange. I found that related question very useful when dealing with the problem that brought me to this one, and I'm sure others have/will as well. Thank you. — Michael Hoffmann, Aug 23 '15 at 07:19

score 188 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 02 '20 at 06:30

188

Ctrl+Alt+F1 to F6 are the virtual consoles provided by the getty/agetty programs. Ctrl+Alt+F7 is the console where your X server is running. The GUI (Gnome/KDE or any other) runs over X. So to get back into your GUI window manager: type:

Ctrl+Alt+F7

or

Alt+F7

or

Ctrl+Alt+F8

With 17.10 and newer, the login screen is on virtual terminal 1, and logged-in users' GUI sessions on VT2 and onwards. So, you may need to use Ctrl+Alt+F2 or Ctrl+Alt+F1 instead.

edited Dec 02 '20 at 06:30

Pablo Bianchi

15,657

answered Jun 29 '12 at 14:14

drake01

3,457

3

Be forewarned -- if you're trying this with a VM while in Windows, this can disable your extended displays -- use Win + P to recover with Extend – kayleeFrye_onDeck Sep 07 '16 at 21:24
1

Ctrl+Alt+F1 works for me. – joseluisq Jan 23 '20 at 07:37

score 38 · Answer 2 · 2013-12-21T17:46:46.043

38

When you are in a virtual console just press Alt+RightArrow or Alt+LeftArrow to move to next/previous virtual console respectively. Console with X is usually seventh.

edited Dec 21 '13 at 17:46

answered Dec 21 '13 at 13:56

1

What i like about this is that this works accross the distros – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy Apr 12 '15 at 06:57
1

how to close them all then? – Mohamed Ibrahim Aug 04 '17 at 20:00

muru · Answer 3 · 2015-04-12T05:41:01.373

25

For completeness, I'll mention the chvt command. The virtual terminal offers a login prompt, and if you have logged in, you can switch to other VTs:

chvt 7

will probably get you back to the GUI, since it usually runs on VT7, as mentioned in the other answers. This is useful for scripting (for example, when taking a screenshot of LightDM).

edited Apr 12 '15 at 05:41

answered Jul 26 '14 at 23:13

muru

197,895
55
485
740

score 22 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 22 '12 at 08:48

22

To revert to the GUI desktop you have to press:

Ctrl+Alt+F7

edited Aug 22 '12 at 08:48

Eliah Kagan

117,780

answered Jun 29 '12 at 14:14

leousa

974
7
23

14

Or just Alt+F7. Holding down Ctrl is only necessary when switching from the GUI to a text-based virtual console. Switching from one text-based virtual console to another (or to X11) can be accomplished with just Alt+Fn. – Eliah Kagan Jun 29 '12 at 14:44
On Freebsd with Lxde, I use Alt+F9 to return to Gui from other virtual consoles. – Hakim Sep 13 '14 at 10:04

score 8 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 09 '12 at 10:33

8

Ctrl+Alt+F7 does not work on LM13 Cinnamon. However, Alt+F8 brings it back to GUI.

edited Sep 09 '12 at 10:33

Peachy

7,117
10
38
46

answered Sep 06 '12 at 20:21

dsiddens

101

score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Jun 26 '18 at 07:31

2

You can determine on which terminals you and any other users are logged in with the who command. For me it was tty9, so I had to press Ctrl+Alt+F9.

edited Jun 26 '18 at 07:31

answered Jul 22 '16 at 08:45

Alvaro

21

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

It has been already mentioned that cycling with Alt+ArrowLeft until you get back to your bellowed desktop also works, especially accross distro's (my Fedora 20, for instance, has GUI on F2), so it's convenient.

There's also a crude method: login and run sudo service lightdm restart, which will restart your session ( so yes, you will be logged out and will get back to login screen ). This answer also takes into account that your login manager might not be lightdm, but the idea is the same.

Reverting from Ctrl - Alt - F1

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