setupcon

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  argu-
       ments:  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/setup-
              con.

       -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)