During boot systemd-vconsole-setup.service fails

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1

I am soo close to have a customized polished Fedora KDE system running on the new Laptop. Just a few more little niggles to resolve.
The Laptop uses EFI secure boot.
We increased font of grub menu be lowering the screen resolution, but the systemd issue has been there from day 1 of the new clean install.
It has no effect on the system booting. It just shows up for a second during the boot process. I like to resolve it for an even cleaner boot-up.

Operating System: Fedora Linux 43
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.22.0
Qt Version: 6.10.1
Kernel Version: 6.18.9-200.fc43.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 24 × AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 w/ Radeon 890M
Memory: 64 GiB of RAM (62.1 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon 890M Graphics

Feb 17 19:16:36 fedora systemd[1]: systemd-vconsole-setup.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Feb 17 19:16:36 fedora systemd[1]: systemd-vconsole-setup.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
Feb 17 19:16:36 fedora systemd[1]: Failed to start systemd-vconsole-setup.service - Virtual Console Setup.
Feb 17 19:16:36 fedora kernel: fbcon: Taking over console
Feb 17 19:16:36 fedora kernel: Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48

2

Post the contents of /etc/vconsole.conf Al.

3

cat /etc/vconsole.conf

KEYMAP=“au”
FONT=“eurlatgr”

4

I thought maybe the Font was the issue, despite that it was the default one from Fedora. So I changed it to a known allowable other font.
See output:

cat /etc/vconsole.conf
KEYMAP=“au”
FONT=“sun12x22”<

Unfortunate it made no difference. Still the same fault. Note that the above is “all” there is in the vconsole.config file. Seems to be a bit bare to me.
Unless I am mistaken, the "systemd-vconsole-setup.service simply exits with FAILURE.
And then has “fbcon” taking over the console function.

Feb 17 23:17:26 fedora systemd[1]: systemd-vconsole-setup.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Feb 17 23:17:26 fedora systemd[1]: systemd-vconsole-setup.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
Feb 17 23:17:26 fedora systemd[1]: Failed to start systemd-vconsole-setup.service - Virtual Console Setup.
Feb 17 23:17:26 fedora kernel: fbcon: Taking over console
Feb 17 23:17:26 fedora kernel: Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48<

5

I think that KEYMAP=“au” is the problem because either:

  • localectl list-keymaps | grep ^au
  • dnf provides '/usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/*/au*'

give no result.

Try thus either:

  • localectl set-keymap us
  • edit /etc/vconsole.conf and set: KEYMAP=“us”

then:

  • sudo systemctl restart systemd-vconsole-setup.service
6

Looks like you might be correct as it shows no key mapping for VC.

localectl status
System Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
VC Keymap: (unset)
X11 Layout: au
X11 Model: pc105<

So I will try it and report back.

7

Nope…

localectl status
System Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
VC Keymap: us
X11 Layout: au
X11 Model: pc105

And

cat /etc/vconsole.conf
KEYMAP=“us”
FONT=“sun12x22”

Still the same error messages at boot up. Do I somehow have to install a set of keymaps 1st for the VC Console, separate to the existing one?

8

Rebooting wasn’t necesssary I think: the restart of systemd-vconsole-setup.service
should be sufficient.

I was fearing that for the au keymap, but dnf provides doesn’t find any RPMs for it.

sun12x22 seems a valid font (in /usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts/sun12x22.psfu.gz)

Can you execute from a terminal:

  • sudo /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-vconsole-setup; echo $?

and paste here its output, using please the </> button (the ``` construct of markdown)

9

You should have that for the us keymap:

root# rpm -qf /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/xkb/us.map.gz
kbd-misc-2.8.0-3.fc43.noarch
root# rpm -qfV /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/xkb/us.map.gz
root#
10

I found that the initrd (initramfs) has to be redone (see: man localectl).
Try thus: sudo dracut -f then reboot

11

Weird…I had a security update with a new Kernel and now no error message during bootup, but below output still shows a problem

setfont: ERROR kdfontop.c:212 put_font_kdfontop: Unable to load such font with such kernel version
/usr/bin/setfont failed with a "system error" (EX_OSERR), ignoring.
Configuration of first virtual console failed, ignoring remaining ones.
0

The original errors are now gone and have disappeared out of journalctl -b -0 So did the kernel/security update fix it now???

12

This is normal, because the initrd has been rebuild with the current
/etc/vconsole.conf

I assume that you have this error when running:

  • sudo /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-vconsole-setup; echo $?

I suspect that Wayland is running on the first virtual console (tty1) an prevent setfont
to be applied.

Can you verify that you have that huge font (sun12x22) on the other consoles ? (ex tty2)

13

Yes, that is when the error appears. I have tried to get onto TTY2 but the Laptop is giving me a hard time to get to it due to the multifunction Function Keys…

14

On some laptop, you should also press the Fn key, thus: Ctrl-Fn-Alt-F2

15

Just worked out that TTY2 is the actual current one. TTY3 dropped me back into a console. I am guessing that the large font was implemented as mine has a very high resolution of: 2560x1600 and it was perfectly readable.

16

Ok.
Ignoring the test from a terminal, one may say that the solution to this topic is:

  • edit /etc/vconsole.conf and set: KEYMAP=“us”
  • regenerate the initrd: dracut -f
  • reboot
17

Yes, just verified. In TTY3 using “fastfetch” the font showed to be “sun12x22”

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18

Yes, I agree. I have marked it as resolved. Thank you so much for your help Francis. This was a very educational journey with a great outcome.

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