How do you switch between virtual consoles in Linux?

Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 through F6 to flip between Linux's built-in virtual consoles — independent full-screen login sessions, one of which usually hosts the graphical desktop.

A "virtual console" is the kernel giving you several complete terminals that share the one physical keyboard and screen. Only one is visible at a time, and the Ctrl+Alt+F-key combo is how you switch which one is on screen. Each can have a different user logged in, running independently — they don't see each other.

(The exact mapping varies by distro — sometimes the GUI sits on tty1, sometimes tty2 — but the idea is constant.)

The killer use case is recovery. If the graphical desktop freezes or X crashes, the text consoles are usually still alive: hit Ctrl+Alt+F3, log in, kill the stuck process or read logs, and you never had to hard-reboot. On a text console the login flow is bare-bones:

1. localhost login: → type your username, Enter.
2. Password: → type it (nothing echoes back — that's intentional), Enter.
3. You land at a shell prompt [user@host ~]$.

Tip: The password not showing as you type isn't a bug; it's a shoulder-surfing defence. Type confidently and press Enter.