unable to change default font/kbd map

[hictio]

this one is a mistery to me, i`ve been following all the advice given in this forum, specially the one on how to set a particular font and keyboard map on a `linux box`, i`ve tweaked all the rc files, and scripts that -i think- i need to.. but, every time i do a reboot, i have to reset the font, and more importantly, the keyboard map again to fit my needs...
any ideas what can be wrong?, this sounds soooo vague ;->, could it be that the instructions are `hard coded`, or `embebedd` onto the kernel, and that i must recompile the kernel to change that?
`tiny linux` distro, based on a slackware 4.o.o, kernel 2.2.6.
note: all of the above aimed for a `console only` system.

[mikek147]

Since I don't now, nor have I ever, need to change my console fonts, so I'm rather unframiliar with this. However, if upon boot and login, you are currently needing to change the default prompt with a series of commands, why don't you put these commands in a shell script file that is called from your shell confuration file, .profile, .cshrc, .bash_profile or .bashrc file?(pick the one you're using) This doesn't fix the root cause of the problem, but it is a potential remedy. -mk

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If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.

[hictio]

it sure it is a remedy, but i`m not sure if i had already checked onto those files, and still doesn´t work; i`m gonna double check tonight, again mike, thanks a lot.

[This message has been edited by hictio (edited 12-13-2000).]

[hictio]

now, i really don`t understand anything... i`ve been having troubles with the fonts and the keymaps of my linux box, but this is insane... in order to support only the language that i`m interested in, spanish, and since the system doesn`t set that the as default keymap, i took the decisive step of moving to a another directory all the keymaps except for the one i`m interested in.
everything cool, except for one thing, when i did a reboot of the system, it didn`t loaded the language that i was hoping for, and the only one that it was available... the same procedure i did for the console font, and niet, it didn`t loaded the one that i liked, and the only one that i left available in the directory, but other totally different....
i`m totally in the dark. what can be wrong? any ideas?

[mikek147]

See if this Spanish Howto is something you can use to help solve your problem. -mk

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If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.

[hictio]

thank you very much, i`ll take the link home, and read it tonight.
once again, well, you know the rest, mike.

[hictio]

mike, thanks for the link, but the help didn´t solved anything. i`m still surprised. because the system doesn`t load the font/charmap that i want.. it`s not a big deal, i can change that in a flash, but i really don`t understand is where does it get the font/charmap that it loads by default, since i`ve disabled every other that it wasn`t the one i want to use, that`s all.
other thing, you suggested me to add a script in `local.rc` in order to load the font/charmap automatically, would be so kind of posting a sample of such script, i`m afraid i don`t know anything regarding the terminology.

[warchild]

I've never seen exactly how Slack deals with the keyboard, but I know that in RedHat, most of the keyboard related stuff is initiated through /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit .

From what I can tell, it checks to see if two files exist: /etc/sysconfig/console/default.kmap and /etc/sysconfig/keyboard .

Chances are, default.kmap either does not exist or is empty. On my system (which uses a US keymap), /etc/sysconfig/keyboard contains the lines:

KEYBOARDTYPE="pc"
KEYTABLE="us"

If you still haven't gotten your keymap to work properly, I recommend editing the keyboard file to use the appropriate language. If /etc/sysconfig/keyboard does not exist on your system, try finding it (find / -name keyboard -print). Thats about all I can do for now.

As for editing the rc.local script, its really quite simple. Open up /etc/rc.d/rc.local in your favorite editor (note: your rc.local may be somewhere different), and simply add the full pathname and options of the program you wish to run at the end of this file. For instance, if I wanted to bring up my ssh daemon using the rc.local script, I would simply add the line /usr/local/sbin/sshd to this file.

Hope this helps.

[warchild]

I got my hands on a slackware system.

In the /etc/rc.d/rc.M script, it checks to see if there is a custom keymap script in /etc/rc.d . This file appears to be called rc.keymap, and I can't imagine its overly complicated.

[hictio]

warchild, thanks a lot for all the input. i can change, and use, the keyboard `language` that i need, my problem is that the system doesn`t load that selected keyboard map/font combination. is not a big a deal to set that manually, but i was totally surprised to discover that, even if i only left available the kbd map and font that i want, a thing i did, linux doen`t load that at start up.
for what i have been reading this weekend, i believe i should edit the file /etc/profile. but, again, i don`t know how to write the instructions to load the kbd/font, i`ll try with what you posted, thanks a lot.

[hictio]

i would like to say thanks to everybody who have been so helpfull, i`ve finally did it, i wrote my first instructions to linux!
the system now loads automatically the font/kbd map of my likings.
all i had to do is edit the `profile` file, in the /etc directory, i even went a little farter adn added a setterm instrucctions to load the the fonts in a color that i like more than the white one....
anyways, thanks a lot for all the answers and willingness o help.