.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
.I getty-command
.IR argument \ ...
.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 AUTHORS
Mattias Andrée
.RI < maandree@kth.se >