The Linux Serial HOWTO: What is getty?







from SERIAL HOW-TO by Greg Hankins, available on http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/HOWTO/Serial-HOWTO.html

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4.1 About getty_ps

This version of getty was written by Paul Sutcliffe Jr., [e-mail].
Kris Gleason, [e-mail] currently maintains
it. 2.0.7e is the latest version, and supersedes any older versions. Most
distributions come with the getty_ps package installed as /sbin/getty.


The getty_ps package contains two getties. getty is
used for console, and terminal devices - and uugetty which is
used for modems. I use this version of getty, so I will focus
on the getty_ps package in this HOWTO.

4.2 About mgetty

mgetty is a version of getty written by Gert Doering
[e-mail]. In addition to allowing logins, mgetty
also provides class 2 FAX support through sendfax, which accompanies
mgetty. mgetty+sendfax 0.22 is the latest version of
this package. The mgetty documentation is quite good, and does
not need supplementing. Please refer to it for installation instructions.

4.3 About agetty

agetty is the third variation of getty. It was original
written by W.Z. Venema, [e-mail]. It's a simple implementation
of getty.