source: chapter07/console.xml@ 3042296

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<sect1 id="ch-scripts-console">
<title>Configuring the Linux console</title>
<?dbhtml filename="console.html"?>

<indexterm zone="ch-scripts-console">
<primary sortas="d-console">console</primary>
<secondary>configuring</secondary></indexterm>

<para>In this section we will configure the <command>console</command>
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 <command>console</command> initscript will do nothing.</para>

<para>The <command>console</command> script uses the
<filename>/etc/sysconfig/console</filename>
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
<filename>/etc/sysconfig/console</filename> 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 <filename class="directory">/usr/share/kbd</filename>
for valid keymaps and screen fonts. Then read the <command>loadkeys</command>
and <command>setfont</command> manual pages and figure out the correct
arguments for these programs.
Once you decided, create the
configuration file with the following command:</para>

<screen><userinput>cat &gt;/etc/sysconfig/console &lt;&lt;"EOF"</userinput>
KEYMAP="<emphasis>arguments for loadkeys</emphasis>"
FONT="<emphasis>arguments for setfont</emphasis>"
<userinput>EOF</userinput></screen>

<para>E.g., for Spanish users who also want to use the Euro character
(accessible by pressing Alt+E),
the following settings are correct:</para>

<screen><userinput>cat &gt;/etc/sysconfig/console &lt;&lt;"EOF"</userinput>
KEYMAP="es euro"
FONT="lat9-16 -u iso01"
<userinput>EOF</userinput></screen>

<note><para>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:</para>
<screen><userinput>FONT="lat1-16"</userinput></screen></note>

<para>If the KEYMAP or FONT variable is not set, the
<command>console</command> initscript will not run the corresponding
program.</para>

<para>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. <application>Emacs</application>
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):</para>

<screen><userinput>zgrep '\W14\W' /path/to/your/keymap</userinput></screen>

<para>If you see that keycode 14 is Backspace and not Delete,
create the following keymap snippet to fix this issue:</para>

<screen><userinput>mkdir -p /etc/kbd &amp; &amp; cat &gt;/etc/kbd/bs-sends-del &lt;&lt;"EOF"</userinput>
                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
<userinput>EOF</userinput></screen>

<para>Then tell the <command>console</command> script to load this snippet
after the main keymap:</para>

<screen><userinput>cat &gt;&gt;/etc/sysconfig/console &lt;&lt;"EOF"</userinput>
KEYMAP_CORRECTION="/etc/kbd/bs-sends-del"
<userinput>EOF</userinput></screen>

<para>If you decided to
compile your keymap directly into the kernel later on in <xref
linkend="chapter-bootable"/> instead of setting it every time from the
<command>console</command> bootscript, then you don't need to run the
<command>loadkeys</command> program. Since the kernel will set up the keymap,
you can omit the KEYMAP variable from the
<filename>/etc/sysconfig/console</filename>
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.</para>

</sect1>