Virtual Terminals
The ALT-F keys
Let's say, if you were working as a user, 'bob' for example, and you found that you needed to do something as 'root'. You wouldn't have to shutdown the program you were working with. You could just press ALT-F2 and Linux will prompt you to login as a different user, in this case, 'root'. You'd just type the root password and then you can do stuff as 'root'. Pretty cool, wouldn't you say?
The combination of ALT, plus the F keys will allow you to login as a different user, or as the same user, but to run a different program. All you then need to do is type: 'exit' when your finished, and then press ALT-F1 again to get back to your original terminal .
A preview of virtual terminals in X-window
It's true that the 1990's brought us the era of the graphic user interface, popularized by Macintosh and Microsoft Windows. This gave us the opportunity to have various programs running at the same time. The X-window system of Linux will let you do this as well, but then we can add the concept of multi-user to it.
If you've been experimenting with your windows manager already, you might want to try one more thing. The combination CRL-ALT-F6 will get you out of your windows manager momentarily so you can login as a different user. Pressing ALT-F7 will get you back to your windows manager again. We'll mention this again in the lesson on X-window.