SETUPCON(1) Console-setup User's Manual SETUPCON(1)
NAME
setupcon - sets up the font and the keyboard on the console
SYNOPSIS
setupcon [OPTION]... [VARIANT]
DESCRIPTION
setupcon is a program for fast and easy setup of the font and the key-
board on the console. Most of the time you invoke setupcon without ar-
guments. The keyboard configuration is specified in ~/.keyboard or
/etc/default/keyboard. The font configuration is specified in ~/.con-
sole-setup or /etc/default/console-setup. Consult keyboard(5) and con-
sole-setup(5) for instructions how to configure these two files.
If you have to switch often between different encodings, keyboards or
languages, you can prepare several alternative configuration files for
setupcon. Suppose that most of the time you will use Greek language
with Greek keyboard layout, but sometimes you need to type in German
with German keyboard layout. In this situation you should customize the
main configuration files (keyboard and console-setup) for Greek. Also,
create alternative configuration files for German named keyboard.german
and console-setup.german. Then in order to configure the console for
Greek you will simply run the command with no arguments: setupcon and in
order to configure the console for German you will use setupcon german.
OPTIONS
VARIANT
Specifies which configuration file to use. With no variant, the
configuration files of setupcon are named console-setup and key-
board. On the other hand, if you use e.g. chukchi as VARIANT
then the configuration files are console-setup.chukchi and key-
board.chukchi. In this way you can have easy access to several
different configurations - for example one for the Chukchi lan-
guage and another for the default configuration.
-v, --verbose
Be more verbose. Use this option if something goes wrong or
while experimenting with the configuration files.
-k, --keyboard-only
Setup the keyboard only, do not setup the font or the terminal.
On Linux it is enough to do this configuration only once.
-f, --font-only
Setup the font only, do not setup the keyboard or the terminal.
On Linux this configuration should be repeated each time a new
console driver is activated (for example when the frame buffer
becomes active).
-t, --terminal-only
Setup the terminal only, do not setup the keyboard or the font.
--current-tty
Setup the only the current virtual terminal.
--force
Do not check whether we are on the console. Notice that you can
be forced to hard-reboot your computer if you run setupcon with
this option and the screen is controlled by a X server.
--save This option can be useful if you want to use setupcon early in
the boot process while /usr is not yet mounted and the required
data are not available. This option will make setupcon copy the
required files in /etc/console-setup/ in order to make them
available before /usr is mounted. If you use setupcon early in
the boot process, then you should run it with this option after
every change of the console configuration.
--save-only
The same as --save, but does not setup anything. This option can
be useful if you want to save the required files while the screen
is controlled by a X server.
--save-keyboard FILE
For use by initrd builders. Do not configure anything. Save an
usable keyboard layout in FILE.
--setup-dir DIR
For use by initrd builders. Do not configure anything. Arrange
in the directory DIR everything necessary in order to configure
the console. The file DIR/morefiles lists all binaries the ini-
trd builder has to install in the initrd image. All other files
in DIR have to be copied unchanged in the initrd. In order to
configure the console one has to run the script DIR/bin/setupcon.
-h, --help
Display usage information.
FILES
~/.console-setup
~/.keyboard
/etc/default/console-setup
/etc/default/keyboard
/etc/default/console-setup.VARIANT
/etc/default/keyboard.VARIANT
/etc/console-setup/
SEE ALSO
keyboard(5), console-setup(5)
console-setup 2011-03-17 SETUPCON(1)
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