%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 are a native English speaker so that you don't need to use any non-ASCII characters, and your keyboard is a US one, 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. In the future releases of LFS-Bootscripts, there will be a pre-made /etc/sysconfig/console file with known good settings for several countries, and you will just have to uncomment the relevant section. 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 Alt+E), the following settings are correct: cat >/etc/sysconfig/console <<"EOF" KEYMAP="es euro" FONT="lat9-16 -u iso01" EOF 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 back in you decided to go compile your keymap directly into the kernel (later on in ), then strictly speaking you don't need to run the loadkeys program, since the kernel will set up the keymap for you, and thus you may 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.