Console vs terminal

What is the difference between a console and terminal? When you hit ctrl+alt+f2 from the gui are you going into a console or terminal?

Calling them either is fine, there's not a firm distinction. If you wanted to be precise, you'd name different kinds of terminal devices -- like the hardware terminals you switch between with ctrl-alt-f[1-12], versus the virtual terminals you get within an xterm and the like. Both get actual, real terminal device files in /dev somewhere -- hardware ones kind of hardcoded, virtual ones generated by the kernel on request.

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