Hi there,
I also just had the same problem on an Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS box (with both
zsh and bash, on tty and on pseudo terminal running X). Is it already
known where this error message comes from, so we could change the string
to something more convenient recommending the user to become root or to
run sudo?
Of course, as explained by ESR it would be nice if it was not even
necessary to run the command as root, but (at least on my system) normal
users have no permission to access the respective file descriptors.
ls -l /dev/console
crw------- 1 root root 5, 1 Aug 22 11:13 /dev/console
ls -l /dev/tty0
crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 0 Aug 22 11:13 /dev/tty0
strace tells me that showkey (run as user) does not have enough privileges:
open("/dev/tty0", O_RDWR) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
open("/dev/tty0", O_WRONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
open("/dev/tty0", O_RDONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
open("/dev/console", O_RDWR) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
open("/dev/console", O_WRONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
open("/dev/console", O_RDONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
BTW: I am running the most recent kbd/showkey version that is available
for Xenial. Maybe this bug has already been fixed upstream in version
2.0?
apt-cache policy kbd
kbd:
Installed: 1.15.5-1ubuntu5
Candidate: 1.15.5-1ubuntu5
Version table:
*** 1.15.5-1ubuntu5 500
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
1.15.5-1ubuntu4 500
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
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You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to kbd in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1006676
Title:
showkey fails with "Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the
console"
Status in kbd package in Ubuntu:
Invalid
Bug description:
When invoked in Gnome Terminal 3.0.1 (Ubuntu 11.10), showkey
uninformatively exits after reporting:
"Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the console"
For one who doesn't know what this means (such as myself), showkey is
thus rendered unusable. The man page has no information about this
behaviour.
Installed kbd package: 1.15.2-3ubuntu1
To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kbd/+bug/1006676/+subscriptions
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