setfont

Change the terminal font

$ setfont [font].gz

$ setfont /usr/share/kbd/[mapping]/[font.ext]

$ setfont [[-d|--double]]

$ setfont

setfont [options] fontfile [keymap]

-v
    Verbose mode. Prints debugging information.

-h height
    Set the console screen font height, where height is the number of scan lines to use for each character cell. Usually used when automatic font height detection fails.

-V
    Display version information.

-default
    Loads the default font set in the kernel during compilation.

-C console
    Operates on the specified console.

-O console
    Same as -C but does not perform any ioctls on console and only makes font available.

The setfont command is used to load a console font and, optionally, a keyboard mapping table onto the Linux console. It allows users to customize the appearance of the console and the way keys are interpreted. This tool is crucial for configuring character sets, font sizes, and keyboard layouts. It typically takes the name of a font file and, optionally, a keymap file as input. The font file specifies the glyphs used to render characters on the screen, while the keymap file defines the mapping between key presses and characters or actions. Setting the font and keymap can improve readability and usability of the console especially important when using foreign language fonts. Font files usually have .psf or .pcf extensions, and keymap files have .map or .kmap extensions. Note that modern systems using systemd-vconsole-setup usually handle console font configuration automatically during boot.

The setfont command requires root privileges to modify the console's font and keymap. It's possible to misconfigure the console and make it unreadable, so caution is advised. On modern systems, configuration of console fonts and keymaps are often managed by systemd services like systemd-vconsole-setup.

Font files used with setfont are usually in .psf (PC Screen Font) or .pcf (Portable Compiled Format) format. .psf fonts are generally preferred for the console.

Keymaps define the mapping between key presses and the characters or actions they produce. They are stored as .map or .kmap files.

To load the LatArCyrHeb-16 font: setfont LatArCyrHeb-16
To load the LatArCyrHeb-16 font and a custom keymap: setfont LatArCyrHeb-16 mykeymap.map

The setfont command has been a part of the Linux console setup toolkit for a long time. It predates modern display managers and graphical environments, providing a way to customize the text-based console interface. In the early days of Linux, it was essential for configuring non-ASCII fonts and keyboard layouts. While its direct use is less common now with GUI-based configuration tools, setfont remains available and useful for console-only environments or when troubleshooting display issues. It allows to change fonts and keymaps even without a graphical interface.

loadkeys(1), kbdrate(1), consolechars(5)