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
       arguments.   The  keyboard configuration is specified in ~/.keyboard or
       /usr/local/etc/default/keyboard.  The font configuration  is  specified
       in  ~/.console-setup  or /usr/local/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 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
       /usr/local/etc/default/console-setup
       /usr/local/etc/default/keyboard
       /usr/local/etc/default/console-setup.VARIANT
       /usr/local/etc/default/keyboard.VARIANT
       /etc/console-setup/


SEE ALSO
       keyboard(5), console-setup(5)



console-setup                     2011-03-17                       SETUPCON(1)