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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
<!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../general.ent">
%general-entities;
]>
<sect1 id="ch-scripts-console">
<?dbhtml filename="console.html"?>
<title>Configuring the Linux Console</title>
<indexterm zone="ch-scripts-console">
<primary sortas="d-console">console</primary>
<secondary>configuring</secondary>
</indexterm>
<indexterm zone="ch-scripts-console">
<primary sortas="d-consolelog">consolelog</primary>
<secondary>configuring</secondary>
</indexterm>
<para>This section discusses how to configure the <command>console</command>
and <command>consolelog</command> bootscripts that set up the keyboard map,
console font and console kernel log level. 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, much of this section can be skipped. Without
the configuration file, the <command>console</command> bootscript will do
nothing.</para>
<para>The <command>console</command> and <command>consolelog</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
HOWTOs 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">/lib/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>LOGLEVEL</term>
<listitem>
<para>This variable specifies the log level for kernel messages sent
to the console as set by <command>dmesg</command>. Valid levels are
from "1" (no messages) to "8". The default level is "7".</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<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., <quote>es</quote>. 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 <quote>euro2</quote>.</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, <quote>-m</quote>, and the name of the application character
map to load. E.g., in order to load the <quote>lat1-16</quote> font
together with the <quote>8859-1</quote> application character map
(as it is appropriate in the USA),
<!-- because of the copyright sign -->
set this variable to <quote>lat1-16 -m 8859-1</quote>.
In UTF-8 mode, the kernel uses the application character map for
conversion of composed 8-bit key codes in the keymap to UTF-8, and thus
the argument of the "-m" parameter should be set to the encoding of the
composed key codes in the keymap.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>UNICODE</term>
<listitem>
<para>Set this variable to <quote>1</quote>, <quote>yes</quote> or
<quote>true</quote> 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.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<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 > /etc/sysconfig/console << "EOF"
<literal># Begin /etc/sysconfig/console
KEYMAP="pl2"
FONT="lat2a-16 -m 8859-2"
# End /etc/sysconfig/console</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>
<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat > /etc/sysconfig/console << "EOF"
<literal># Begin /etc/sysconfig/console
KEYMAP="de-latin1"
KEYMAP_CORRECTIONS="euro2"
FONT="lat0-16 -m 8859-15"
# End /etc/sysconfig/console</literal>
EOF</userinput></screen>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The following is a Unicode-enabled example for Bulgarian, where a
stock UTF-8 keymap exists:</para>
<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat > /etc/sysconfig/console << "EOF"
<literal># Begin /etc/sysconfig/console
UNICODE="1"
KEYMAP="bg_bds-utf8"
FONT="LatArCyrHeb-16"
# 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:</para>
<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat > /etc/sysconfig/console << "EOF"
<literal># Begin /etc/sysconfig/console
UNICODE="1"
KEYMAP="bg_bds-utf8"
FONT="cyr-sun16"
# End /etc/sysconfig/console</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>
<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat > /etc/sysconfig/console << "EOF"
<literal># Begin /etc/sysconfig/console
UNICODE="1"
KEYMAP="de-latin1"
KEYMAP_CORRECTIONS="euro2"
LEGACY_CHARSET="iso-8859-15"
FONT="LatArCyrHeb-16 -m 8859-15"
# End /etc/sysconfig/console</literal>
EOF</userinput></screen>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Some keymaps have dead keys (i.e., keys that don't produce a
character by themselves, but put an accent on the character produced
by the next key) or define composition rules (such as: <quote>press
Ctrl+. A E to get Æ</quote> in the default keymap).
Linux-&linux-version; interprets dead keys and composition rules in the
keymap correctly only when the source characters to be composed together
are not multibyte. This deficiency doesn't affect keymaps for European
languages, because there accents are added to unaccented ASCII
characters, or two ASCII characters are composed together. However, in
UTF-8 mode it is a problem, e.g., for the Greek language, where one
sometimes needs to put an accent on the letter <quote>alpha</quote>.
The solution is either to avoid the use of UTF-8, or to install the
X window system that doesn't have this limitation in its input
handling.</para>
</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 the Linux text console localization. It has nothing to do with setting the
proper keyboard layout and terminal fonts in the X Window System, with ssh
sessions or with a serial console. In such situations, limitations mentioned
in the last two list items above do not apply.</para>
</note>
</sect1>
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