Disable clearing of boot messages
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After the boot process, the screen is cleared and the login prompt appears, leaving users unable to read init output and error messages. This default behavior may be modified using methods outlined in this article.
Note that regardless of the chosen option, kernel messages can be displayed for inspection after booting by using dmesg
or all logs from the current boot with journalctl -b
.
Using flow control
This is basic management that applies to most terminal emulators, including virtual consoles (vc):
- Press Template:Keypress to pause the output
- And Template:Keypress to resume it
Have boot messages stay on tty1
By default, arch has the getty@tty1
service enabled. The service file already passes --noclear
, which stops agetty from clearing the screen. However systemd clears the screen before starting it because the unit file uses TTYVTDisallocate=yes
. To disable this:
# sed /TTYVTDisallocate=/s/yes/no/ < /usr/lib/systemd/system/getty\@.service > /etc/systemd/system/getty.target.wants/getty\@tty1.service
Disable clearing in /etc/issue
If you have an old /etc/issue
that has the "clear TTY" escape sequences, remove them.
# sed -i $'s/\e\[H//; s/\e\[2J//' /etc/issue