FEISTY: ctrl alt f1 terminal doesn't work with special characters (ñ, ç..)

[Patrick]

In festy, if I do control+alt+F1 to go into command line mode, I can't use special characters like ñ, ç, accented characters (à, é, for example) or ¬.

I believe, also, that it's related with the fact that amsn doesn't work with those characters too.

Xorg-server 1:7.2-0ubuntu7

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Please attach /etc/default/console-setup and tell me the version of console-setup you're using.

[Patrick (patrick-voegeli)]

console-setup: 1.13ubuntu8

hope it helps, thanx

[Patrick (patrick-voegeli)]

I've realized that after running sudo setupcon, the special characters work fine, I can use ñ,ç,à,ó and so on..

anyway, amsn still doesn't work properly with those chars.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Whatever's wrong with amsn is a totally separate bug. Please file that separately.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Believe it or not, this was actually a usplash bug. usplash needed to save and restore the console font while switching to and from graphics mode.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

usplash (0.5.2) gutsy; urgency=low

  * Don't break on purge if /etc/usplash.conf doesn't exist (e.g. usplash
    didn't get properly configured).
  * ensure_console doesn't need to be part of libusplash's ABI; don't export
    it.
  * Save the console font before switching to graphics mode, and restore it
    when switching back to text mode (LP: #91422).

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Mon, 04 Jun 2007 10:43:03 +0100

[Éric C. (4fohumm02)]

It seems it is not an usplash only issue. The problem is present when switching from tty to X and back to tty. A way to reproduce:
* Press [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F1]
* Try to type "éàöä" -> it does not work
* Type setupcon -> it is repaired
* Press [ALT]+[F7] -> Back to X
* Press [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F1]
* Try to type "éàöä" -> it's broken again

[Daniel Hahler (blueyed)]

Éric, I can confirm what you say. I've built the fixed usplash for Feisty from source and the issue is still present.

If you have tested it with Gutsy, please re-open this bug: in my case there may be something missing in Feisty.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

In that case, apparently xorg-server has a bug, which would be separate from the usplash bug. This is rather strange as I looked at what the X server code did before writing my usplash fix ...

Could you elaborate on the way in which the console is broken? Is it just the keymap, just the font, or both? You can tell which is which by using 'sudo setupcon -k' to set just the keymap and 'sudo setupcon -f' to set just the font.

[Daniel Hahler (blueyed)]

Just "sudo setupcon -f" fixes it: it's the font and it's especially bad if you're having a smaller font size (e.g. 14) than the default (16): you cannot see the last lines then.

[Daniel Hahler (blueyed)]

I'm rejecting the bug on xorg-server: this is caused by the binary nvidia driver. If I use "nv" in xorg.conf, switching between consoles works as expected.
Therefor I'm changing the package to lrm. In fact, I have just tested it with -22, but on Feisty.

[Éric C. (4fohumm02)]

Probably not an nvidia only bug. I use ATI hardware (Radeon IGP 345M on an HP Pavilion ze5500 laptop).

Some new information in contradiction with what I said earlier. I removed the "splash" option from my /boot/grub/menu.lst, and now, my consoles behave well.

But I noticed a strange behaviour of setupcon: if you have a ~/.console-setup file, different from the /etc/default/console-setup, when you type setupcon, the console is set up with you personal preferences, and when you switch back and forth to X server, the console is reinitialized with /etc preferences... and this leads to national characters problems...

[Daniel Hahler (blueyed)]

I do not have a ~/.console-setup file and I've attached my /etc/default/console-setup.
Using FONTSIZE="16" (instead of 14) does not cause this problem: this is the size used already when switching to the console.

[mtom (thloh)]

Hi folks,

I was experiencing the same problems und I am looking for this fix as said in the headline. Could anyone point me to it?

There is a patch around for /etc/init.d/usplash, but that didn't work for me. Instead I changed the following in /etc/init.d/usplash:

        if type setupcon >/dev/null 2>&1; then
            CONSOLE_SCREEN=/bin/setupcon # <- my modification
            #CONSOLE_SCREEN= #old line
        elif [ -x /etc/init.d/console-screen.sh ]; then
            CONSOLE_SCREEN=/etc/init.d/console-screen.sh
        else
            CONSOLE_SCREEN=
        fi

So I got the console initialized the right way. Setting CONSOLE_SCREEN to "/etc/init.d/console-setup start" does not work.
Hopefully this will be fixed in Gutsy.

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

The 18 month support period for Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 has reached its end of life -
http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-7.10-eol . As a result, we are closing the
linux-restricted-modules-2.6.22 task. It would be helpful if you could test the
new Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 release and confirm if this issue remains -
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/904overview. If the issue still exists with the Jaunty
release, please update this report by changing the Status of the "linux (Ubuntu)"
task from "Incomplete" to "New". Thanks in advance.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in a supported series, please file a new bug.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.