12.3: vt driver does not provide virtual console terminals

Hija,

  the (current default) vt console driver does not provide multiple
virtual terminals on VGA console (no KMS). Only one console terminal
is accessible. The others are present, they can be switched to with
Alt-Fn, but they provide no I/O and are just black.

When reverting to the sc console driver, the virtual terminals are
working as expected. (But without UTF-8 hardly useable.)

The hardware docs say the graphics is an AST-2400 (xeon server board)
 - I suppose that should resemble a VGA card.

The /dev/ttyv* devices are present. (The same config did work with a
intel core-i integrated graphics console.)

It doesn't make a difference if hw.vga.textmode is on or off.

There is also this error reported:
> module_register_init: MOD_LOAD (vesa, 0xffffffff80e22c00, 0) error 19

This one is widely discussed as currently not supported by vt driver, but
this should be related to higher resolution screen, and not virtual
terminals missing. Or has it something to do with each other, and is
it a known problem? 


cheerio,
PMc