{ "mode": "man", "parameter": "console-setup", "section": "5", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/console-setup/5/json", "generated": "2026-10-04T14:33:47Z", "sections": { "NAME": { "content": "console-setup - configuration file for setupcon\n", "subsections": [] }, "DESCRIPTION": { "content": "The file console-setup specifies the encoding and the font to be used by setupcon(1) in order\nto setup the console. It can be used also to specify the keyboard layout but it is not rec‐\nommended to do so, use keyboard(5) instead.\n\nThe font specification consists of three parameters - codeset, font face and font size. The\ncodeset specifies what characters will be supported by the font. There isn't one-to-one cor‐\nrespondence between codeset and encoding, for example the codeset Lat15 is suitable for\nISO 8859-1, ISO 8859-9 and ISO 8859-15. The codesets are two kinds - small and big. Only\nsmall codesets are supported on FreeBSD.\n\nThe font face determines the general look of the font. Each font face is available in cer‐\ntain possible sizes. On FreeBSD only 8x16, 8x14 and 8x8 are valid sizes. On Linux if frame‐\nbuffer is not used or consolechars(1) is installed instead of setfont(1), then the permitted\nsizes have the form 8xNUMBER.\n\n\nThe console driver of FreeBSD permits fonts in different sizes to be simultaneously loaded.\nWhich one of them will be actually used depends on the current video mode. Therefore, on\nthis platform the font size specification will be ignored and setupcon(1) will load the se‐\nlected font face in all available sizes.\n\nThe file console-setup consists of variable settings in POSIX format:\n\nVARIABLE='VALUE'\n\nOnly one assignment is allowed per line. Comments (starting with '#') are also allowed.\n\n", "subsections": [] }, "OPTIONS": { "content": "The following variables can be set.\n\n\nACTIVECONSOLES\nSpecifies the device files in /dev of the virtual terminals to be configured. File\nname wild-cards (*, ?) are allowed. On Linux usually you can set this to\n/dev/tty[1-6] and on FreeBSD a sensible value is /dev/ttyv[0-8]. You can assign to\nthis variable also the special value guess. It will cause setupcon(1) to attempt to\nguess the active virtual consoles by looking in configuration files such as /etc/init‐\ntab and /etc/ttys. This guessing is not always reliable.\n\n\nCHARMAP\nSpecifies the desired encoding on the console. Valid values are: UTF-8, ARMSCII-8,\nCP1251, CP1255, CP1256, GEORGIAN-ACADEMY, GEORGIAN-PS, IBM1133, ISIRI-3342,\nISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-2, ISO-8859-3, ISO-8859-4, ISO-8859-5, ISO-8859-6, ISO-8859-7,\nISO-8859-8, ISO-8859-9, ISO-8859-10, ISO-8859-11, ISO-8859-13, ISO-8859-14,\nISO-8859-15, ISO-8859-16, KOI8-R, KOI8-U, TIS-620 and VISCII. The special value guess\nis also recognized in which case the system command locale(1) will be used to guess\nthe desired encoding (currently this works reliably only with GNU libc).\n\n\nCODESET\nIn most cases the special value guess can be used here in which case a suitable code‐\nset will be guessed. The codeset determines which symbols are supported by the font.\nValid small codesets are: Armenian, CyrAsia, CyrKoi, CyrSlav, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew,\nLao, Lat15, Lat2, Lat38, Lat7 and Thai. Valid big codesets are: Arabic, Ethiopian,\nUni1, Uni2, Uni3 and Vietnamese. Only small codesets can be used on FreeBSD. See be‐\nlow the section entitled “CODESETS” for detailed description of each of these code‐\nsets.\n\n\nFONTFACE and FONTSIZE\nValid font faces are: VGA (sizes 8x8, 8x14, 8x16, 16x28 and 16x32), Terminus (sizes\n6x12, 8x14, 8x16, 10x20, 12x24, 14x28 and 16x32), TerminusBold (sizes 8x14, 8x16,\n10x20, 12x24, 14x28 and 16x32), TerminusBoldVGA (sizes 8x14 and 8x16), and Fixed\n(sizes 8x13, 8x14, 8x15, 8x16 and 8x18). If however CODESET=Ethiopian, then the\navailable font faces are Goha and GohaClassic, each in sizes 8x12, 8x14 and 8x16.\n\nSet FONTFACE and FONTSIZE to empty strings if you want to configure only the keyboard\nand to leave the console font unchanged.\n\n\nVIDEOMODE\nSet VIDEOMODE to an empty string to avoid setting up the video mode. On FreeBSD you\ncan run\n\nvidcontrol -i mode\n\nin order to see all possible video modes. On Linux fbset(1) is used to configure the\nvideo mode but very often this doesn't work because the default framebuffer driver\n(VesaFB) is rather limited and doesn't allow changes of the video mode.\n\n\nFONT, FONTMAP and CONSOLEMAP\nIf set, specify that a non standard font is to be used. The value of the variable\nFONT consists of one or more space separated font file names. On Linux, when the font\ndoesn't contain embedded Unicode map, an external map can be specified with the vari‐\nable FONTMAP. The value of CONSOLEMAP is a file that specifies a translation map\nfrom the user's 8-bit encoding to Unicode (Linux only) or directly to font positions.\n\n\nSCREENWIDTH and SCREENHEIGHT\nIf set, these variables specify a screen size that setupcon(1) will enforce with\nstty(1). This can be useful with some braille devices that are only 40 cells wide.\nThe screen size can not exceed what the current screen resolution can display accord‐\ning to the size of the loaded font.\n\n\nBEEP This variable controls the style of the system beep on the console. When unset or\nwhen BEEP=default no changes to the system beep will be made. Other possible values\nof BEEP are: standard - set a standard beep; short - like the standard beep but some‐\nwhat shorter; shortest - even more short, suitable when your work generates lots of\nbeeps; polite - a very short beep with low frequency, suitable when there are other\npeople in the room; attention - a very long beep, suitable when you want to warn your‐\nself about an occurring event; annoying - also a long beep, suitable when you want to\nwarn somebody else about an occurring event; and off - disable the system beep on the\nconsole.\n\n", "subsections": [] }, "CODESETS": { "content": "There are two kinds of codesets - small (up to 256 symbols) and big (up to 512 symbols). On‐\nly small codesets can be used on FreeBSD. When the screen is in text mode (i.e. framebuffer\nis not used) then fonts covering big codesets will reduce the number of available foreground\ncolors.\n\n", "subsections": [ { "name": "Arabic (a big codeset)", "content": "Supported languages: Arabic, Kurdish in Iran, Pashto, Persian and Urdu.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (size 8x16) and VGA (sizes 8x16 and\n16x32).\n\n" }, { "name": "Armenian", "content": "Supported language: Armenian.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes).\n\n" }, { "name": "CyrAsia", "content": "This codeset supports some of the non-Slavic Cyrillic languages - Abkhazia, Avaric, Azerbai‐\njani, Bashkir, Buryat, Chechen, Chuvash, Inupiaq (Eskimo), Kara-Kalpak, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Komi,\nKumyk, Kurdish, Lezghian, Mari (Cheremis), Mongolian, Ossetic, Selkup (Ostyak-Samoyed),\nTajik, Tatar, Turkmen, Tuvinian, Uzbek and Yakut.\n\nCompletely supported by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes).\n\n" }, { "name": "CyrKoi", "content": "Supports entirely the 8-bit encodings KOI8-R and KOI8-U. Suitable for Russian and Ukrainian\nwhen one of these two encodings is used.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces (in all sizes): Fixed, Terminus, TerminusBold,\nTerminusBoldVGA and VGA.\n\n" }, { "name": "CyrSlav", "content": "Supports entirely the 8-bit encodings ISO-8859-5 and CP1251. Suitable the Slavic Cyrillic\nlanguages - Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian. For Serbian\nboth the Cyrillic and the Latin alphabets are supported.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes), Terminus (all sizes), Ter‐\nminusBold (all sizes), TerminusBoldVGA (all sizes), VGA (sizes 8x16 and 16x32).\n\n" }, { "name": "Ethiopian (a big codeset)", "content": "Supports Amharic, Ethiopic (Geez), Tigre and Tigrinya.\n\nThis codeset is partially covered by the following font faces: Fixed (sizes 8x15 and 8x18),\nGoha (all sizes) and GohaClassic (all sizes).\n\n" }, { "name": "Georgian", "content": "Supported language: Georgian.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes).\n\n" }, { "name": "Greek", "content": "Supported language: Greek.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes) and VGA (sizes 8x16 and\n16x32).\n\n" }, { "name": "Hebrew", "content": "Supported languages: Hebrew and Yiddish.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (sizes 8x13, 8x15, 8x16 and 8x18) and\nVGA (sizes 8x16 and 16x32).\n\n" }, { "name": "Lao", "content": "Supported languages: Lao.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (sizes 8x15 and 8x16).\n\n" }, { "name": "Lat15", "content": "Covers entirely ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-9 and ISO-8859-15. Suitable for the so called Latin1\nand Latin5 languages - Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Aragonese, Asturian, Aymara, Basque, Bisla‐\nma, Breton, Catalan, Chamorro, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Finnish,\nFrench, Frisian, Friulian, Galician, German, Hiri Motu, Icelandic, Ido, Indonesian, Interlin‐\ngua, Interlingue, Italian, Low Saxon, Lule Sami, Luxembourgish, Malagasy, Manx Gaelic, Norwe‐\ngian Bokmal, Norwegian Nynorsk, Occitan, Oromo or Galla, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romance (Roman‐\nsch), Scots Gaelic, Somali, South Sami, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tswana, Turkish, Volapuk,\nVotic, Walloon, Xhosa, Yapese and Zulu.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes), Terminus (all sizes), Ter‐\nminusBold (all sizes), TerminusBoldVGA (all sizes), VGA (sizes 8x16 and 16x32).\n\n" }, { "name": "Lat2", "content": "Covers entirely ISO-8859-2. The Euro sign and the Romanian letters with comma below are also\nsupported. Suitable for the so called Latin2 languages - Bosnian, Croatian, Czech, Hungari‐\nan, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian and Sorbian (lower and upper).\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes), Terminus (all sizes), Ter‐\nminusBold (all sizes), TerminusBoldVGA (all sizes), VGA (sizes 8x16 and 16x32).\n\n" }, { "name": "Lat38", "content": "Covers entirely ISO-8859-3 and ISO-8859-14. Suitable for Chichewa Esperanto, Irish, Maltese\nand Welsh.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes) and VGA (sizes 8x16 and\n16x32).\n\n" }, { "name": "Lat7", "content": "Covers entirely ISO-8859-13. Suitable for Lithuanian, Latvian, Maori and Marshallese.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes), Terminus (all sizes), Ter‐\nminusBold (all sizes), TerminusBoldVGA (all sizes), VGA (sizes 8x16 and 16x32).\n\n" }, { "name": "Thai", "content": "Supported language: Thai.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes).\n\n" }, { "name": "Uni1 (a big codeset)", "content": "Supports most of the Latin languages, the Slavic Cyrillic languages, Hebrew and barely Ara‐\nbic.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (sizes 8x15 and 8x16) and VGA (all\nsizes).\n\n" }, { "name": "Uni2 (a big codeset)", "content": "Supports most of the Latin languages, the Slavic Cyrillic languages and Greek.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes) and VGA (sizes 8x16 and\n16x32).\n\n" }, { "name": "Uni3 (a big codeset)", "content": "Supports most of the Latin and Cyrillic languages.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (all sizes).\n\n" }, { "name": "Vietnamese (a big codeset)", "content": "Supported language: Vietnamese.\n\nCompletely covered by the following font faces: Fixed (sizes 8x13, 8x15, 8x16 and 8x18).\n\n" } ] }, "FILES": { "content": "The standard location of the console-setup configuration file is /etc/default/console-setup.\nThe keyboard configuration is in /etc/default/keyboard. Fonts that can be used with the\nvariable FONT are usually installed in /usr/share/consolefonts/ or /usr/share/syscons/fonts/.\nTranslation maps that can be used with the variable CONSOLEMAP are usually installed in\n/usr/share/consoletrans/ or /usr/share/syscons/scrnmaps/.\n\n", "subsections": [] }, "NOTES": { "content": "The aim of the Terminus font is to reduce the eyes-fatigue when one has to read a lot. Cur‐\nrently this font supports only the Latin, the Cyrillic and the Greek scripts (the Lat15,\nLat2, Lat7, CyrAsia, CyrKoi, CyrSlav, Greek, Uni2 and Uni3 codesets).\n\nThe fonts with font face TerminusBoldVGA are optimized for use with regular text video modes.\nThey should not be used with framebuffer video modes. The fonts with font face TerminusBold\nare optimized for use with the framebuffer video modes. The fonts with font face Terminus\ncan be used in all video modes.\n\n", "subsections": [] }, "SEE ALSO": { "content": "setupcon(1), keyboard(5), setfont(8), vidcontrol(1)\n\n\nconsole-setup 2011-03-17 CONSOLE-SETUP(5)", "subsections": [] } }, "summary": "console-setup - configuration file for setupcon", "flags": [], "examples": [], "see_also": [ { "name": "setupcon", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/setupcon/1/json" }, { "name": "keyboard", "section": "5", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/keyboard/5/json" }, { "name": "setfont", "section": "8", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/setfont/8/json" }, { "name": "vidcontrol", "section": "1", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/vidcontrol/1/json" }, { "name": "CONSOLE-SETUP", "section": "5", "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/CONSOLE-SETUP/5/json" } ] }