setupcon - sets up the font and the keyboard on the console
setupcon [OPTION]... [VARIANT]
setupcon is a program for fast and easy setup of the font
and the keyboard on the console. Most of the time you invoke setupcon
without arguments. The keyboard configuration is specified in
~/.keyboard or /etc/default/keyboard. The font configuration
is specified in ~/.console-setup or
/etc/default/console-setup. Consult keyboard(5) and
console-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.
- VARIANT
- Specifies which configuration file to use. With no variant, the
configuration files of setupcon are named console-setup and
keyboard. On the other hand, if you use e.g. chukchi as
VARIANT then the configuration files are
console-setup.chukchi and keyboard.chukchi. In this way you
can have easy access to several different configurations - for example one
for the Chukchi language 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 initrd
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.
~/.console-setup
~/.keyboard
/etc/default/console-setup
/etc/default/keyboard
/etc/default/console-setup.VARIANT
/etc/default/keyboard.VARIANT
/etc/console-setup/