Failed to set font on some Linux systems when boot up
Yifei Liu <[email protected]> Thu, 5 Jun 2025 23:26:06 +0000
| Newsgroups | dev.linux.lists.kbd |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Hi kbd maintainers,=20 We recently noticed that there are some error messages printing to the cons= ole when system is booting up.=20 systemd-vconsole-setup[1545]: setfont: ERROR kdfontop.c:183 put_font_kdfont= op: Unable to load such font with such kernel version=20 systemd-vconsole-setup[1523]: /usr/bin/setfont failed with a "system error"= (EX_OSERR), ignoring.=20 systemd-vconsole-setup[1523]: Setting source virtual console failed, ignori= ng remaining ones. There is also a similar discussion at: https://github.com/void-linux/void-p= ackages/issues/45216=20 It is due to that dummy console does not support setfont operation. In the = kernel, there is currently an option to let frame-buffer (fb) console to de= fer take over the console for a smooth and successful boot at certain situa= tions. The fb console will take over after there is actually a text sent to= the output, text with a high importance set in /proc/sys/kernel/printk. Be= fore the takeover, it will be dummy console which does not implement setfon= t function.=20 It looks systemctl will continue to try this until it succeed. Thus, there = should be no functionality impact to the system but some error messages.=20 There is a kernel/grub param side solution for this. We can just disable th= e defer take over of the fb console to avoid those messages. But meanwhile = it will lose the advantage of defer takeover. Would it be possible to get = a fix for these messages at kbd side? Maybe block the error messages when i= t is on dummy console or block for a few of seconds after the boot? Thank you very much.=20 Yifei=