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authorArchaic <archaic@linuxfromscratch.org>2005-12-26 19:46:12 +0000
committerArchaic <archaic@linuxfromscratch.org>2005-12-26 19:46:12 +0000
commit94aa662138576c22deef1642b3b2b302ad075a82 (patch)
tree38766a292ed556718529449133b71b25138df9b8 /chapter07/console.xml
parent5536f7440f2f4a12782e8d741cbbba5f1c3cfea8 (diff)
Reverting UTF-8 changes until everything is in place.
git-svn-id: http://svn.linuxfromscratch.org/LFS/trunk/BOOK@7236 4aa44e1e-78dd-0310-a6d2-fbcd4c07a689
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<para>This section discusses how to configure the <command>console</command>
bootscript that sets up the keyboard map and the console font. If non-ASCII
- characters (e.g., the copyright sign, the British pound sign and Euro symbol)
- will not be used and the keyboard is a U.S. one, skip this section. Without
- the configuration file, the <command>console</command> bootscript will do
- nothing.</para>
+ characters (e.g., the British pound sign and Euro character) will not be used
+ and the keyboard is a U.S. one, skip this section. Without the configuration
+ file, the <command>console</command> bootscript will do nothing.</para>
<para>The <command>console</command> script reads the
<filename>/etc/sysconfig/console</filename> file for configuration information.
Decide which keymap and screen font will be used. Various language-specific
- HOWTO's can also help with this, see <ulink
- url="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/other-lang.html"/>. If still in
- doubt, look in the <filename class="directory">/usr/share/kbd</filename>
- directory for valid keymaps and screen fonts. Read
- <filename>loadkeys(1)</filename> and <filename>setfont(8)</filename> manual
- pages to determine the correct arguments for these programs.</para>
-
- <para>The <filename>/etc/sysconfig/console</filename> file should contain lines
- of the form: VARIABLE="value". The following variables are recognized:</para>
-
- <variablelist>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>KEYMAP</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>This variable specifies the arguments for the
- <command>loadkeys</command> program, typically, the name of keymap
- to load, e.g. "es". If this variable is not set, the bootscript will
- not run the <command>loadkeys</command> program, and the default kernel
- keymap will be used.</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>KEYMAP_CORRECTIONS</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>This (rarely used) variable
- specifies the arguments for the second call to the
- <command>loadkeys</command> program. This is useful if the stock keymap
- is not completely satisfactory and a small adjustment has to be made. E.g.,
- to include the Euro sign into a keymap that normally doesn't have it,
- set this variable to "euro2".</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>FONT</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>This variable specifies the arguments for the
- <command>setfont</command> program. Typically, this includes the font
- name, "-m", and the name of the application character map to load.
- E.g., in order to load the "lat1-16" font together with the "8859-1"
- application character map, set this variable to "lat1-16 -m 8859-1".
- If this variable is not set, the bootscript will not run the
- <command>setfont</command> program, and the default VGA font will be
- used together with the default application character map.</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>UNICODE</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>Set this variable to "1", "yes" or "true" in order to put the
- console into UTF-8 mode. This is useful in UTF-8 based locales and
- harmful otherwise.</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>LEGACY_CHARSET</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>For many keyboard layouts, there is no stock Unicode keymap in
- the Kbd package. The <command>console</command> bootscript will
- convert an available keymap to UTF-8 on the fly if this variable is
- set to the encoding of the available non-UTF-8 keymap. Note, however,
- that dead keys and composing will not work in UTF-8 mode without the
- special kernel patch.</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry>
- <term>BROKEN_COMPOSE</term>
- <listitem>
- <para>Set this to "0" if you are going to apply that kernel patch in
- Chapter 8. Note that you also have to add the character set expected
- by composition rules in your keymap to the FONT variable after the
- "-m" switch.</para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-
- </variablelist>
-
- <para>Support for compiling the keymap directly into the kernel has been
- removed because there were reports that it leads to incorrect results.</para>
-
- <para>Some examples:</para>
-
- <itemizedlist>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>For a non-Unicode setup, only the KEYMAP and FONT variables are
- generally needed. E.g., for a Polish setup, one would use:</para>
-
-<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat &gt; /etc/sysconfig/console &lt;&lt; "EOF"
-<literal># Begin /etc/sysconfig/console
-
-KEYMAP="pl2"
-FONT="lat2a-16 -m 8859-2"
-
-# End /etc/sysconfig/console</literal>
+ HOWTO's can also help with this (see <ulink
+ url="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/other-lang.html"/>. A pre-made
+ <filename>/etc/sysconfig/console</filename> file with known settings for several
+ countries was installed with the LFS-Bootscripts package, so the relevant
+ section can be uncommented if the country is supported. If still in doubt, look
+ in the <filename class="directory">/usr/share/kbd</filename> directory for valid
+ keymaps and screen fonts. Read <filename>loadkeys(1)</filename> and
+ <filename>setfont(8)</filename> to determine the correct arguments for
+ these programs. Once decided, create the configuration file with the following
+ command:</para>
+
+<screen><userinput>cat &gt;/etc/sysconfig/console &lt;&lt;"EOF"
+<literal>KEYMAP="<replaceable>[arguments for loadkeys]</replaceable>"
+FONT="<replaceable>[arguments for setfont]</replaceable>"</literal>
EOF</userinput></screen>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>As mentioned above, it is sometimes necessary to adjust a
- stock keymap slightly. The following example adds the Euro symbol to the
- German keymap:</para>
+ <para>For example, for Spanish users who also want to use the Euro
+ character (accessible by pressing AltGr+E), the following settings are
+ correct:</para>
-<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat &gt; /etc/sysconfig/console &lt;&lt; "EOF"
-<literal># Begin /etc/sysconfig/console
-
-KEYMAP="de-latin1"
-KEYMAP_CORRECTIONS="euro2"
-FONT="lat0-16 -m 8859-15"
-
-# End /etc/sysconfig/console</literal>
+<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat &gt;/etc/sysconfig/console &lt;&lt;"EOF"
+<literal>KEYMAP="es euro2"
+FONT="lat9-16 -u iso01"</literal>
EOF</userinput></screen>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Here is a Unicode-enabled example for Bulgarian, where a stock
- UTF-8 keymap exists and defines no dead keys or composition rules:</para>
-<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat &gt; /etc/sysconfig/console &lt;&lt; "EOF"
-<literal># Begin /etc/sysconfig/console
+ <note>
+ <para>The <envar>FONT</envar> line above is correct only for the ISO 8859-15
+ character set. If using ISO 8859-1 and, therefore, a pound sign
+ instead of Euro, the correct <envar>FONT</envar> line would be:</para>
-UNICODE="1"
-KEYMAP="bg_bds-utf8"
-FONT="LatArCyrHeb-16"
+<screen role="nodump"><userinput>FONT="lat1-16"</userinput></screen>
+ </note>
-# End /etc/sysconfig/console</literal>
-EOF</userinput></screen>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Due to the use of a 512-glyph LatArCyrHeb-16 font in the previous
- example, bright colors are no longer available on the Linux console unless
- a framebuffer is used. If one wants to have bright colors without
- framebuffer and can live without characters not belonging to his language,
- it is still possible to use a language-specific 256-glyph font, as
- illustrated below. This would, however, also break single quotes in manual
- pages.</para>
-
- <!-- And even with the LatArCyrHeb-16 font, copying-and-pasting produces
- non-ASCII variants of opening and closing single quote instead of ` and '.
- Maybe another sed has to be added to groff instructions that will remove
- both issues. -->
-
-<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat &gt; /etc/sysconfig/console &lt;&lt; "EOF"
-<literal># Begin /etc/sysconfig/console
-
-UNICODE="1"
-KEYMAP="bg_bds-utf8"
-FONT="cyr-sun16"
-
-# End /etc/sysconfig/console</literal>
+ <para>If the <envar>KEYMAP</envar> or <envar>FONT</envar> 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
+ from ones in the default keymap built into the kernel. This confuses some
+ applications. For example, Emacs displays its help (instead of erasing the
+ character before the cursor) when Backspace is pressed. To check if the keymap
+ in use is affected (this works only for i386 keymaps):</para>
+
+<screen role="nodump"><userinput>zgrep '\W14\W' <replaceable>[/path/to/your/keymap]</replaceable></userinput></screen>
+
+ <para>If the keycode 14 is Backspace instead of Delete, create the
+ following keymap snippet to fix this issue:</para>
+
+<screen role="nodump"><userinput>mkdir -pv /etc/kbd &amp;&amp; cat &gt; /etc/kbd/bs-sends-del &lt;&lt;"EOF"
+<literal> 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</literal>
EOF</userinput></screen>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>The following example illustrates keymap autoconversion from
- ISO-8859-15 to UTF-8 and enabling dead keys in Unicode mode:</para>
+ <para>Tell the <command>console</command> script to load this
+ snippet after the main keymap:</para>
-<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat &gt; /etc/sysconfig/console &lt;&lt; "EOF"
-<literal># Begin /etc/sysconfig/console
-
-UNICODE="1"
-KEYMAP="de-latin1"
-KEYMAP_CORRECTIONS="euro2"
-LEGACY_CHARSET="iso-8859-15"
-BROKEN_COMPOSE="0"
-FONT="LatArCyrHeb-16 -m 8859-15"
-
-# End /etc/sysconfig/console</literal>
+<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat &gt;&gt;/etc/sysconfig/console &lt;&lt;"EOF"
+<literal>KEYMAP_CORRECTIONS="/etc/kbd/bs-sends-del"</literal>
EOF</userinput></screen>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>For Chinese, Japanese, Korean and some other languages, the Linux
- console cannot be configured to display the needed characters. Users
- who need such languages should install the X Window System, fonts that
- cover the necessary character ranges, and the proper input Method (e.g.
- SCIM, it supports a wide variety of languages).</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
-
- <!-- Added because folks keep posting their console file with X questions
- to blfs-support list -->
- <note>
- <para>The <filename>/etc/sysconfig/console</filename> file only controls
- Linux text console localization. It has nothing to do with setting the proper
- keyboard layout and terminal fonts in X Window System.</para>
- </note>
+ <para>To compile the keymap directly into the kernel instead of
+ setting it every time from the <command>console</command> bootscript,
+ follow the instructions given in <xref linkend="ch-bootable-kernel" role="."/>
+ Doing this ensures that the keyboard will always work as expected,
+ even when booting into maintenance mode (by passing
+ <parameter>init=/bin/sh</parameter> to the kernel), because the
+ <command>console</command> bootscript will not be run in that
+ situation. Additionally, the kernel will not set the screen font
+ automatically. This should not pose many problems because ASCII characters
+ will be handled correctly, and it is unlikely that a user would need
+ to rely on non-ASCII characters while in maintenance mode.</para>
+
+ <para>Since the kernel will set up the keymap, it is possible to omit
+ the <envar>KEYMAP</envar> variable from the
+ <filename>/etc/sysconfig/console</filename> configuration file. It can
+ also be left in place, if desired, without consequence. Keeping it
+ could be beneficial if running several different kernels where it is
+ difficult to ensure that the keymap is compiled into every one of
+ them.</para>
</sect1>