.TH SLEEPING-GETTY 8 SLEEPING-GETTY
.SH NAME
sleeping\-getty \- Do not start a fullblown getty before it is necessary
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B sleeping\-getty
.I VTNO
.IR GETTY_COMMAND ...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B sleeping\-getty
shall wait until
.I VTNO
(a number of a virtual terminal) becomes the foreground console.
Then, it shall
.BR execvp (3)
to
.IR GETTY_COMMAND ,
with
.I GETTY_COMMAND
and all following arguments as the command line arguments.
.PP
Note that
.B sleeping-getty
works on VT:s, not TTY:s. It cannot wait for a serial console to
become, active, only virtual terminals.
.SH EXAMPLE
.nf
/sbin/\fBsleeping\-getty\fP \fI15\fP /sbin/got tty\fI15\fP TERM=linux
/sbin/\fBsleeping\-getty\fP \fI16\fP /sbin/got tty\fI16\fP TERM=linux
/sbin/\fBsleeping\-getty\fP \fI20\fP /sbin/agetty -8 -s 38400 tty\fI20\fP linux
.fi
.SH NOTES
.B sleeping\-getty
does not acquire the TTY. That would be a waste of CPU cycles.
This means, if naïvely used, that if you start your computer,
log in on
.BR tty1 ,
and start
.BR X ,
and have
.B startx
configured to start
.B X
on the next available VT.
.B X
will start on VT\ 2. This is probably not want you want.
Instead you should edit
.B startx
to ensure that a VT lower than a preferred number
(customarily 7) will not be used.
.SH RATIONALE
It is nice to have a score or two of TTY:s available. However,
starting them, can require some unnecessary CPU time and will
was memory until they are actually used. This becomes extra
important on resource contained machines.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR getty (8),
.BR mingetty (8),
.BR agetty (8),
.BR got (8),
.BR vtchs (1),
.BR inittab (5)
.SH LICENSE
Copyright \(co 2015  Mattias Andrée
.br
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
.br
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
.br
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
.SH 
.PP
Copying and distribution of this manual, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.  This file is offered as-is,
without any warranty.
.SH BUGS
Please report bugs to <https://github.com/maandree/sleeping-getty/issues>
or to <maandree@member.fsf.org>.