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Vconsole.conf KEYMAP= FONT= _base mkinitcpio.conf v40 error #3928

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Merged
svartkanin merged 7 commits into from
Dec 8, 2025
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Vconsole.conf KEYMAP= FONT= _base mkinitcpio.conf v40 error #3928

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h8d13 Nov 15, 2025
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h8d13 Nov 15, 2025
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h8d13 Nov 15, 2025
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Revert genfstab and pacstrap command changes
h8d13 Nov 15, 2025
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h8d13 Nov 16, 2025
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Merge branch 'archlinux:master' into vconsole
h8d13 Dec 6, 2025
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26 changes: 26 additions & 0 deletions archinstall/lib/installer.py
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -868,6 +868,9 @@ def minimal_installation(
pacman_conf.enable(optional_repositories)
pacman_conf.apply()

if locale_config:
self.set_vconsole(locale_config)

self.pacman.strap(self._base_packages)
self._helper_flags['base-strapped'] = True

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1783,6 +1786,29 @@ def chown(self, owner: str, path: str, options: list[str] = []) -> bool:
except SysCallError:
return False

def set_vconsole(self, locale_config: 'LocaleConfiguration') -> None:
# use the already set kb layout
kb_vconsole: str = locale_config.kb_layout
# this is the default used in ISO other option for hdpi screens TER16x32
# can be checked using
# zgrep "CONFIG_FONT" /proc/config.gz
# https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Linux_console#Fonts

font_vconsole = 'default8x16'

# Ensure /etc exists
vconsole_dir: Path = self.target / 'etc'
vconsole_dir.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
vconsole_path: Path = vconsole_dir / 'vconsole.conf'

# Write both KEYMAP and FONT to vconsole.conf
vconsole_content = f'KEYMAP={kb_vconsole}\n'
# Corrects another warning
vconsole_content += f'FONT={font_vconsole}\n'

vconsole_path.write_text(vconsole_content)
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@svartkanin svartkanin Nov 16, 2025

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Is it certain that this file does not exist at this point? If so then this iwll override any existing content

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@svartkanin svartkanin Nov 16, 2025 •
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In addition, shouldn't we use localectl to update the file?
Running a localectrl set-keymap XXX will update this file for me, so I don't understand why we would want to do this manually?

For convenience, localectl may be used to set the console keymap. It will change the KEYMAP variable in /etc/vconsole.conf and also set the keymap for the current session:

We may have to update the call here https://github.com/svartkanin/archinstall/blob/275259928c34d59cd166055e675938719b2b7276/archinstall/lib/installer.py?plain=1#L1779 to also call localectl on target

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@h8d13 h8d13 Nov 16, 2025 •
edited
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Basically without it the first base hook fails hence why i needed to place it before_base

And calling localectl before base well this was more straightforward and uses already existing content of config.

https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/1otgoas/issue_with_mkinitcpio/

This also makes encryption layouts possible i guess ? I was using ckbcomp with grub manually before to generate layout files for French keyboard from AUR 😩

These need to be latin compatible to my understanding at least with grub which why I had added all the docs comments lmao but since you validate ASCII for passwords and such

And i think these are different things needs specifically
KEYMAP= and FONT=

Maybe we could detect screen size to set font to larger alternative dynamically

Sorry for bad img from reddit

image

Currently same happens with archinstall but keeps going (non-fatal) with vconsole.conf being set:

Screenshot_20251111_134321

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@h8d13 h8d13 Nov 17, 2025 •
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Also since it's called before it doesn't get overwritten in the subsequent calls

514026282-1a2f1a6d-5a1f-4e7a-a199-7c8ded4540e4.png

Continuation of #1187 with a earlier approach @svartkanin would be great to get some feedback as this could help many users using different kb than US (altho I'm unsure about limitation outside of latin range). Or update instructions: https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/blob/master/archinstall/locales/README.md

You test on branch: testing in https://github.com/h8d13/archinstall-patch

Which also includes my hardware draft for laptops

info(f'Wrote to {vconsole_path} using {kb_vconsole} and {font_vconsole}')

def set_keyboard_language(self, language: str) -> bool:
info(f'Setting keyboard language to {language}')

Expand Down