mapscrn

mapscrn [options] [font]

-o outfile
    Save the present mapping to outfile.

-V
    Display program version.

font
    Specifies the name of the font file to load. If omitted, a default mapping is loaded that maps all possible character codes to displayable characters.

The mapscrn command in Linux allows you to load user-defined character mappings into the kernel's console driver. This command is particularly useful for displaying characters that are not part of the standard ASCII or ISO-8859-1 character sets, enabling support for different languages and symbol sets on the console.

It works by loading a mapping file that defines how specific byte values should be translated into glyphs for display. This allows customization of the console's appearance and expands the range of characters that can be displayed. A character map (charmap) must be loaded with loadkeys before it will be used.

Using custom character maps can sometimes lead to display issues if the underlying terminal or font does not support the specified characters. Incorrectly configured mappings can render the console unusable, requiring a reboot. loadkeys must be called beforehand to load the desired charmap.

The font files are typically located in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/.

A common use case is displaying special symbols or characters from languages that are not natively supported by the default console font. This is crucial for system administrators who need to manage systems in different locales or troubleshoot encoding-related issues.

The mapscrn command has been a part of the Linux console toolkit for a long time, providing a mechanism for customizing the character set used on the text-based console. Its original purpose was to allow users to display characters from various languages and symbol sets before widespread adoption of graphical interfaces. It is part of the kbd package.

loadkeys(1), kbdrate(1), setfont(1)