1SETUPCON(1) Console-setup User's Manual SETUPCON(1)
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6 setupcon - sets up the font and the keyboard on the console
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10 setupcon [OPTION]... [VARIANT]
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14 setupcon is a program for fast and easy setup of the font and the key‐
15 board on the console. Most of the time you invoke setupcon without
16 arguments. The keyboard configuration is specified in ~/.keyboard or
17 /etc/default/keyboard. The font configuration is specified in ~/.con‐
18 sole-setup or /etc/default/console-setup. Consult keyboard(5) and con‐
19 sole-setup(5) for instructions how to configure these two files.
20 If you have to switch often between different encodings, keyboards or
22 languages, you can prepare several alternative configuration files for
23 setupcon. Suppose that most of the time you will use Greek language
24 with Greek keyboard layout, but sometimes you need to type in German
25 with German keyboard layout. In this situation you should customize
26 the main configuration files (keyboard and console-setup) for Greek.
27 Also, create alternative configuration files for German named
28 keyboard.german and console-setup.german. Then in order to configure
29 the console for Greek you will simply run the command with no argu‐
30 ments: setupcon and in order to configure the console for German you
31 will use setupcon german.
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36 VARIANT
37 Specifies which configuration file to use. With no variant, the
38 configuration files of setupcon are named console-setup and key‐
39 board. On the other hand, if you use e.g. chukchi as VARIANT
40 then the configuration files are console-setup.chukchi and key‐
41 board.chukchi. In this way you can have easy access to several
42 different configurations - for example one for the Chukchi lan‐
43 guage and another for the default configuration.
44 -v, --verbose
47 Be more verbose. Use this option if something goes wrong or
48 while experimenting with the configuration files.
49 -k, --keyboard-only
52 Setup the keyboard only, do not setup the font or the terminal.
53 On Linux it is enough to do this configuration only once.
54 -f, --font-only
57 Setup the font only, do not setup the keyboard or the terminal.
58 On Linux this configuration should be repeated each time a new
59 console driver is activated (for example when the frame buffer
60 becomes active).
61 -t, --terminal-only
64 Setup the terminal only, do not setup the keyboard or the font.
65 --current-tty
68 Setup the only the current virtual terminal.
69 --force
72 Do not check whether we are on the console. Notice that you can
73 be forced to hard-reboot your computer if you run setupcon with
74 this option and the screen is controlled by a X server.
75 --save This option can be useful if you want to use setupcon early in
78 the boot process while /usr is not yet mounted and the required
79 data are not available. This option will make setupcon copy the
80 required files in /etc/console-setup/ in order to make them
81 available before /usr is mounted. If you use setupcon early in
82 the boot process, then you should run it with this option after
83 every change of the console configuration.
84 --save-only
87 The same as --save, but does not setup anything. This option
88 can be useful if you want to save the required files while the
89 screen is controlled by a X server.
90 --save-keyboard FILE
93 For use by initrd builders. Do not configure anything. Save an
94 usable keyboard layout in FILE.
95 --setup-dir DIR
98 For use by initrd builders. Do not configure anything. Arrange
99 in the directory DIR everything necessary in order to configure
100 the console. The file DIR/morefiles lists all binaries the ini‐
101 trd builder has to install in the initrd image. All other files
102 in DIR have to be copied unchanged in the initrd. In order to
103 configure the console one has to run the script DIR/bin/setup‐
104 con.
105 -h, --help
108 Display usage information.
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112 ~/.console-setup
113 ~/.keyboard
114 /etc/default/console-setup
115 /etc/default/keyboard
116 /etc/default/console-setup.VARIANT
117 /etc/default/keyboard.VARIANT
118 /etc/console-setup/
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122 keyboard(5), console-setup(5)
123console-setup 2011-03-17 SETUPCON(1)