%general-entities; ]> console configuring In this section we will configure the console initscript that sets up the keyboard map and the console font. If you don't need to use any non-ASCII characters (British pound and Euro character are not ASCII), and your keyboard is a US one, you can skip this section. Without the configuration file, the console initscript will do nothing. The console script uses the /etc/sysconfig/console as a configuration file. You need to decide which keymap and screen font you will use. The language-specific HOWTO can help you. A pre-made /etc/sysconfig/console file with known good settings for several countries was installed with the LFS-Bootscripts package, and you just have to uncomment the relevant section if your country is supported (but read the rest of this section anyway). If still in doubt, look into /usr/share/kbd for valid keymaps and screen fonts. Then read the loadkeys and setfont manual pages and figure out the correct arguments for these programs. Once you decided, create the configuration file with the following command: cat >/etc/sysconfig/console <<"EOF" KEYMAP="[arguments for loadkeys]" FONT="[arguments for setfont]" EOF E.g., for Spanish users who also want to use the Euro character (accessible by pressing AltGr+E), the following settings are correct: cat >/etc/sysconfig/console <<"EOF" KEYMAP="es euro2" FONT="lat9-16 -u iso01" EOF The FONT line above is correct only for the ISO-8859-15 character set. If you prefer ISO-8859-1 and therefore use a pound sign instead of Euro, the correct FONT line is: FONT="lat1-16" If the KEYMAP or FONT variable is not set, the console initscript will not run the corresponding program. In some keymaps, the Backspace and Delete keys send characters different form ones in the default keymap built into the kernel. This confuses some applications, e.g., Emacs displays its help (instead of erasing the character before the cursor) when you press Backspace. To check if your keymap is affected (this works only for i386 keymaps): zgrep '\W14\W' [/path/to/your/keymap] If you see that keycode 14 is Backspace and not Delete, create the following keymap snippet to fix this issue: mkdir -p /etc/kbd && cat >/etc/kbd/bs-sends-del <<"EOF" keycode 14 = Delete Delete Delete Delete alt keycode 14 = Meta_Delete altgr alt keycode 14 = Meta_Delete keycode 111 = Remove altgr control keycode 111 = Boot control alt keycode 111 = Boot altgr control alt keycode 111 = Boot EOF Then tell the console script to load this snippet after the main keymap: cat >>/etc/sysconfig/console <<"EOF" KEYMAP_CORRECTION="/etc/kbd/bs-sends-del" EOF If you want to compile your keymap directly into the kernel instead of setting it every time from the console bootscript, then instructions are given in . Doing this ensures that your keyboard will always work as expected, even when you boot into maintenance mode (by passing init=/bin/sh to the kernel), as in that situation, the console bootscript won't be run. Additionally, the kernel will not set the screen font automatically. Again, this shouldn't pose too many problems as ASCII characters will still be handled correctly, and it is unlikely that you would need to rely on non-ASCII characters whilst in maintenance mode. Since the kernel will set up the keymap, you can omit the KEYMAP variable from the /etc/sysconfig/console configuration file. If you wish, you can still have it, this isn't going to hurt you. Keeping it could even be beneficial, in case you run a lot of different kernels and can't be sure that the keymap is compiled into every one of them.