DennisLfromGA
commented
9 years ago I'll take a stab at this and tell you what I've learned in my experience.
A 'crouton' chroot doesn't really launch over the top of ChromeOS, though it may seem like it. When the chroot is started, it switches you to another virtual terminal, usually vt3. ChromeOS is still up and running but it's on vt1. 'crouton' is designed to run your chroot(s) from the crosh shell using Ctrl+Alt+t or via a Crosh Window extension. The shell uses vt1 (virtual terminal 1), it's best not to run a crouton chroot from the Developer shell on vt2. Switching between crosh and your chroot(s) in crouton is done by using the keys: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Back(F1) and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Forward(F2) as mentioned in a 'tip' when you install a crouton chroot:
You can flip through your running chroot desktops and Chromium OS by hitting Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Back and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Forward```
When a chroot starts, it is normally assigned to vt3, then the next active chroot vt4, etc.
An alternate method of switching between crosh and your chroot(s) is the one you mention above but it takes more keystrokes and a little bit of knowledge as to what system is on what vt.
To switch into crosh, you can use Ctrl+Alt+Forward(F2) followed by Ctrl+Alt+Back(F1).
To switch into your first or only chroot, you can use Ctrl+Alt+Forward(F2) followed by Ctrl+Alt+Refresh(F3) for vt3.
To switch into your second active chroot, you can use Ctrl+Alt+Forward(F2) followed by Ctrl+Alt+Full Screen(F4) for vt4.
etc., etc.
You can see that this works but is not as convenient as using the Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Back(F1) and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Forward(F2) key combo.
When in your chroot, you can see what is assigned to each vt with the command: croutoncycle list. This command also lets you switch between cros and your active chroots from the command line which is pretty slick. 'croutoncycle's help message explains it's use:
croutoncycle next|prev|cros|list|# Cycles through running graphical chroots. next: switch to the next display prev: switch to the previous display cros: switch directly to Chromium OS list: list all of the active displays and the associated chroot name #: switch to the nth item in the list, zero-indexed :#: switch directly to the chroot owning the specified display number```
Hope this helps, -DennisL
cefn
I found that my LXDE chroot (based on crouton -t lxde -r trusty) launches over the top of my ChromeOS terminal and graphics session (a specific TTY I would guess).
In other words after launching LXDE from the Developer shell, (sudo startlxde -b) the CTRL+ALT+=> navigation can only reach two sessions the Developer shell, or LXDE. The ChromeOS session becomes apparently overwritten by LXDE and otherwise invisible or inaccessible.
After logging out of LXDE the CTRL+ALT+=> navigation still shows two sessions, the Developer shell, or ChromeOS - the session has been preserved.
Perhaps related is an apparently static snapshot of ChromeOS taking over the screen when LXDE is launched for a minute or so, which hides all other sessions, before any of the navigation keys become responsive, and then either the LXDE desktop or Developer shell become visible depending on which navigation keys you're punching.
It's possible that I launched LXDE for the first time from CTRL+ALT+T to get chrosh then 'shell' but don't know what kind of permanent TTY association might have been made, then, or how to reverse it. The build is quite satisfactory if I could run it simultaneously with ChromeOS. Should I rebuild it and relaunch it from the Developer shell first time to make a permanent TTY association there?