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Reorder items so that tty0 is a subcase of tty{0..N}. Note on highest TTY number.
  • /dev/console is a virtual set of devices which can be set as a parameter at boot time. It might be redirected to a serial device or a virtual console and by default points to /dev/tty0. When multiple console= options are passed to the kernel, the console output will go to more than one device;

  • /dev/tty[0-N] (N is the highest attributed TTY number, e.g. 63) is one of the virtual consoles you switch to with control-alt-F1 and so on;

  • /dev/tty0 is also by default virtual console;

  • /dev/tty is kind of an alias to the console (physical, virtual or pseudo device, if any) associated to the process that open it. Unlike the other devices, you do not need root privileges to write to it. Note also that processes like the ones launched by cron and similar batch processes have no usable /dev/tty, as they aren't associated with any. These processes have a ? in the TTY column of ps -ef output.

jlliagre
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