Arch Linux

programmador

Member

Registered: 2020-04-19

Posts: 13

vconsole.font not respected by 5.19

Unfortunately I don't remember which version exactly causes the issue as it started to happen about a week ago.
Seems like the problem is in 5.19 as 5.19.1 and 5.19.2 were installed during this period of time.

So, here's my /etc/vconsole.conf:

KEYMAP=us
FONT="ter-v16n"

It seems like it's content is ignored during boot while using latest kernels. The font is not being set. So in my case I see the squares instead of cyrillic characters.

• The font is being set successfully if I boot lts kernel (5.15.61)

• Setting the font manually works successfully via setfont /path/to/font.psf.gz

programmador

Member

Registered: 2020-04-19

Posts: 13

Re: vconsole.font not respected by 5.19

Oh, I forgot to mention that the font is being set during startup. But then it switches back in the monent when console is being cleared and the startup continues. Probably it's the moment when kms is being enabled.

yorkz

Member

Registered: 2020-03-22

Posts: 32

Re: vconsole.font not respected by 5.19

Thanks for reporting this issue as I'm having the exact same problem since I upgraded my system to 5.19-1 a few days ago, and I was about to ask before seeing this report. Hopefully someone could provide some help soon.

Last edited by yorkz (2022-08-20 14:16:56)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,999

Website

Re: vconsole.font not respected by 5.19

Adding the consolefont hook to /etc/mkinitcpio.conf works for me.

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

yorkz

Member

Registered: 2020-03-22

Posts: 32

Re: vconsole.font not respected by 5.19

Hi @Head_on_a_Stick, thanks for your help but it didn't work for me. Here's what I did:

1. I added `consolefont` to the hooks in `/etc/mkinitcpio.conf` so it became:

   HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block filesystems keyboard fsck consolefont)

2. With current diretory being `/boot`, I ran:

   $ sudo mkinitcpio -g initramfs-linux.img

   with the following output:

==> Starting build: 5.19.1-arch2-1
  -> Running build hook: [base]
  -> Running build hook: [udev]
  -> Running build hook: [autodetect]
  -> Running build hook: [modconf]
  -> Running build hook: [block]
==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: xhci_pci
  -> Running build hook: [filesystems]
  -> Running build hook: [keyboard]
  -> Running build hook: [fsck]
  -> Running build hook: [consolefont]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating zstd-compressed initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Image generation successful

3. Reboot the system, but it made no difference at all.

Any idea?

Last edited by yorkz (2022-08-22 17:18:56)

Fixxer

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2011-08-29

Posts: 231

Re: vconsole.font not respected by 5.19

Are you sure that name of the font is proper? Can you locate this file on disk?

For example:

cat /etc/vconsole.conf
FONT=eurlatgr
KEYMAP=pl

locate eurlatgr
/usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/README.eurlatgr
/usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/README.eurlatgr.mappings
/usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/eurlatgr.psfu.gz

yorkz

Member

Registered: 2020-03-22

Posts: 32

Re: vconsole.font not respected by 5.19

Here's my /etc/vconsole.conf:

$ cat /etc/vconsole.conf 

KEYMAP=qwert
FONT=ter-p32n
FONT_MAP=8859-2

and the `find` command output:

$ find /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts -name 'ter-p32n.*'
/usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/ter-p32n.psf.gz

Last edited by yorkz (2022-08-22 17:17:12)

crondrift

Member

Registered: 2021-03-29

Posts: 8

Re: vconsole.font not respected by 5.19

Remove the consolefont hook and add the specific module for your case at the beginning of /etc/mkinitcpio.conf:

MODULES=(i915) or MODULES=(amdgpu) ...

Then regenerate the initramfs.

Hi @Head_on_a_Stick, thanks for your help but it didn't work for me. Here's what I did:

1. I added `consolefont` to the hooks in `/etc/mkinitcpio.conf` so it became:

```
   HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block filesystems keyboard fsck consolefont)
```
2. With current diretory being `/boot`, I ran:
```
   $ sudo mkinitcpio -g initramfs-linux.img
```

   with the following output:
```
==> Starting build: 5.19.1-arch2-1
  -> Running build hook: [base]
  -> Running build hook: [udev]
  -> Running build hook: [autodetect]
  -> Running build hook: [modconf]
  -> Running build hook: [block]
==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: xhci_pci
  -> Running build hook: [filesystems]
  -> Running build hook: [keyboard]
  -> Running build hook: [fsck]
  -> Running build hook: [consolefont]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating zstd-compressed initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Image generation successful
```
3. Reboot the system, but it made no difference at all.

Any idea?

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,999

Website

Re: vconsole.font not respected by 5.19

it's the moment when kms is being enabled

Sorry, missed this. I have early KMS enabled so try that (as crondrift suggests but keep the consolefont hook IMO).

If it still doesn't work post the output of

# lsinitcpio -a /boot/initramfs-linux.img
# lsinitcpio /boot/initramfs-linux.img | grep consolefont
$ cat /proc/cmdline

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2022-08-22 17:26:17)

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

yorkz

Member

Registered: 2020-03-22

Posts: 32

Re: vconsole.font not respected by 5.19

Apologize for replying late, and yes, adding

MODULES=(i915) 

to initramfs (without consolefont) did solve the problem. Thank you so much for the help.

My understanding is that this is just to enable the Early KMS right? So was the problem a result of early user space wasn't able to set the proper video resolution to display the font? Any explanation to why the issue shows up in 5.19.1 but not any earlier versions?

Last edited by yorkz (2022-08-24 16:15:25)

sergei_mipt

Member

Registered: 2019-11-09

Posts: 8

Re: vconsole.font not respected by 5.19

editing MODULES and HOOKS inside mkinitcpio.conf fixed the problem for me:

# nano /etc/vconsole.conf
...
FONT=ter-k32n
...
# nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
...
MODULES=(i915)
...
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block lvm2 filesystems keyboard fsck consolefont)
...
# mkinitcpio -p linux

then reboot