Keyboard configuration in console
Keyboard mappings (keymaps) for virtual console, console fonts and console maps are provided by the kbd package (it should already be installed), which also provides many low-level tools for managing virtual console.
Contents
Viewing keyboard settings
You can use the following command to view keyboard configuration:
$ localectl status
System Locale: LANG=en_GB.utf8 LC_COLLATE=C VC Keymap: cz-qwertz X11 Layout: cz
Setting keyboard layout
Unlike XKB keyboard layout, which is composed of multiple components, the keyboard layout for virtual console has only one component. Usually one keymap file corresponds to one keyboard layout (the include statement can be used to share common parts and a keymap file can contain multiple layouts with some key combination used for switching). The keymap files are stored in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/
directory tree. You can use the following command to list all available keymaps:
$ localectl list-keymaps
Persistent configuration
High-level configuration can be done in /etc/vconsole.conf
, which is read by systemd on start-up. The KEYMAP
variable is used for specifying keymap. If the variable is empty or not set, the us
keymap is used as default value. See man 5 vconsole.conf
for all options. For example:
/etc/vconsole.conf
KEYMAP=cz-qwertz ...
For convenience, localectl may be used to set console keymap. It will change the KEYMAP
variable in /etc/vconsole.conf
and set the keymap for current session. For example:
$ localectl set-keymap --no-convert keymap
See man 1 localectl
for details.
Temporary configuration
Of course it is possible to set a keymap just for current session. This is useful for testing different keymaps, solving problems etc.
The loadkeys tool is used for this purpose, it is used internally by systemd when loading the keymap configured in /etc/vconsole.conf
. It can be used very simply for this purpose:
# loadkeys keymap
See man 1 loadkeys
details.
Other settings
Changing console font
The kbd package provides tools to change virtual console font and font mapping. The fonts are saved in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/
directory.
The configuration is done in vconsole.conf
using the FONT
and FONT_MAP
variables:
/etc/vconsole.conf
... FONT=Lat2-Terminus16 FONT_MAP=8859-2
If the FONT
variable is empty or not set, the kernel built-in font is used as default. See man 5 vconsole.conf
for details.
Adjusting typematic delay and rate
The typematic delay indicates the amount of time (typically in miliseconds) a key needs to be pressed in order for the repeating process to begin. After the repeating process has been triggered, the character will be repeated with a certain frequency (usually given in Hz) specified by the typematic rate. These values can be changed using the kbdrate command:
# kbdrate [-d delay] [-r rate]
For example to set a typematic delay to 200ms and a typematic rate to 30Hz, use the following command:
# kbdrate -d 200 -r 30
Issuing the command without specifying the delay and rate will reset the typematic values to their respective defaults; a delay of 250ms and a rate of 11Hz:
# kbdrate