[kbd] mapscrn: cannot open map file _8859-15_

Sat Dec 1 18:51:12 MSK 2012

On Sat, Dec 01, 2012 at 04:24:44AM +0200, Raphael Yoshimura wrote:
> Hello,
> First of all thanks a lot for the reply. I'm not very comfortable with
> mailing lists as I get lost between the lines and quotes and so on, so
> please excuse me if my e-mail is not written according to the best mailing
> list standards. I will just refer to your comments as #1, #2 etc.
> 
> #1: I tried "sudo grep -r -i "8859-15" /etc/rc.d/init.d/" , however the
> console returns and empty line. Probably meaning that the phrase wasn't
> found.

 No, please grep for SYSFONTACM.  It is a variable - you assigned a
value of 8859-15 to it, so somewhere in a script $SYSFONTACM is
being tested.
> 
> #2: I was referring to the file "/etc/sysconfig/i18n". Before I enabled
> UTF-8 support its first line was "SYSFONTACM=8859-15". After I enabled
> UTF-8 support, this first line from i18n disappeared after I restarted the
> machine. I have no idea why the i18n contained the line
> "SYSFONTACM=8859-15", but since it disappeared after enabling UTF-8 I
> thought that the bigger error which is the message "mapscrn: cannot open
> map file _8859-15_" that appears during boot up, might have something to do
> with i18n or unicode/UTF-8 settings.

 OK. (googles ...) - I didn't realise people use it.  I use setfont.

 So, something in your distro's init scripts is trying to set font
translations.  On my system, these are in /lib/kbd/consoletrans.
Among them is 8859-15_to_uni.trans which might be relevant to this.

> 
> #3: My keyboard works fine. The error is a message "mapscrn: cannot open
> map file _8859-15_" that appears during linux boot up. Basically it doesn't
> affect the performance of the OS in any way or at least not to my knowledge
> but I don't like errors and I want to fix it or at least  understand it.
> 

 'man mapscrn' - it appears to be for mapping key values from a
non-unicode keymap to unicode, so that the keys display correctly.
If I've understood it correctly, the functionality is only required
if you are _not_ in unicode mode [ 'man setfont' ].

> #4: How do I find whether I'm using initramfs or initrd ?
> 

 See next answer.

> #5: How do I find whether I'm using systemd ? There are probably some
> mailing lists about mageia, however I did ask on the official mageia forum
> and the developers there were rather puzzled and were not able to help me.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> R.Y.

 I see you have asked at https://forums.mageia.org/en/ and I think
the replies from 'doktor5000' are correct : UTF8 is normal nowadays,
but it seems from your other thread you referenced there that you
originally installed without it.

 You need to ask people who are experienced with mageia if there is
something else you need to change, or to run, to get everything set
up for UTF-8.  Every distro does things its own way when booting.

 Hmm, if you have managed to install mageia without originally
selecting UTF-8, I guess that you are using "a road less travelled"
so people will not be familiar with SYSFONTACM and perhaps an old bug
has persisted.

 Certainly, my UTF-8 in your reply renders correctly here, so I
think that your mail client, and therefore your *desktop*, is now set
correctly.  If you are in America, and do everything on the desktop,
you can probably get by with your system in its current settings -
when you use the console, typically for system maintenance, you can
probably get by without any "accented" or "variant" letters.

 In the english-speaking world, it's only those of us who want to
read text *from a selection of languages* in the console who need to
get it set "perfectly" for our needs.  Obviously, the issue is more
pressing for those whose native language is not English.  But, if
you ever use 8859-15 in the console, it won't support Bulgarian!

(I put "perfectly" in inverted commas, because only 256 or 512
glyphs are available to the console fonts - from a universe of
thousands of glyphs - so we all have to make a choice about what to
render in the console.)

ĸen

> 
> On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 1:02 AM, Ken Moffat <zarniwhoop at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 10:27:08PM +0200, Raphael Yoshimura wrote:
> > > No idea ? Anyone ?
> > >
> >  It appears to be something specific to Mageia.  Try grepping for
> > SYSFONTACM in your bootscripts (/etc/rc.d/init.d/*, probably) to see
> > how it gets used.  Not every distro uses /etc/sysconfig/i18n - it
> > seems to be used in distros derived from Red Hat, but it's possible
> > that Mageia has changed things over the years.
> >
> > > >> 25.11.2012 04:53, Raphael Yoshimura wrote:
> > > >> > Hello all,
> > > >> > I'm having an annoying issue with kbd that I can't seem to resolve:
> > > >> > When I boot, during the boot screen after GRUB I see an error
> > saying:
> > > >> > "mapscrn: cannot open map file _8859-15_"
> > > >> >
> > > >> > I'm using Mageia 2 Linux and my secondary language is Bulgarian.
> > > >> >
> > > >> > This is how my /etc/sysconfig/i18n looked like;
> > > >> >
> > > >> > SYSFONTACM=8859-15
> > > >> >> LANGUAGE=en_US:en
> > [...]
> > > >> >
> > > >> > I was having unicode issues aside, so when I enabled UTF-8 from
> > Mageia
> > > >> > Control Center, the first line disappeared. Now it looks like this.
> > > >> >
> >  I still can't parse this comment - you say the first line
> > disappeared - presumably you mean the mapscrn error message ?
> > > >> > LANGUAGE=en_US:en
> > [...]
> > > >> >
> > > >> >
> > > >> > However the error still exists.
> >
> >  but I don't understand *what* the error is.  Does your keyboard
> > work correctly in the console, or is it trashed ?
> > > >> >
> > > >> > One person running Archlinux on initramfs solved his issue this way:
> > > >> >
> > > >> > removed the keymap HOOK in the configuration file / etc /
> > > >> mkinitcpio.conf
> > > >> >> and regenerated the initramfs
> > > >> >
> > > >> >
> > > >> > However I'm not running Archlinux, I don't have a
> > /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
> > > >> and
> > > >> > I'm on a ext4 not an initramfs.
> >
> >  Most distros use a variant of initramfs or initrd - it lets them
> > build almost everything as a module, including filesystems and disk
> > controllers.  That part has nothing to do with the filesystem type,
> > it is bundled in with the kernel.  I think that you probably need to
> > regenerate whichever you are using whenever you change the setup.
> >
> > > >> >
> > > >> > Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
> > > >>
> > > >> https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_2_beta2#initrd
> > > >>
> > > >> "Mageia 2 will default to dracut as tool for creating initrds (initial
> > > >> ramdisk, used during boot). We still provide mkinitrd for those that
> > > >> need that, but will only support it when used with initscripts. Users
> > > >> of systemd must use dracut."
> > > >>
> > > >> So for initrd you can use either the mkinitrd or dracut. It depends on
> > > >> the configuration. So, do you have a systemd ?
> > > >>
> > > >> You are using dracut if you have a systemd. Here's how to set up the
> > > >> console in dracut:
> > > >>
> > > >> http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/dracut/dracut.html#_i18n
> > > >>
> > > >> Check out your /etc/vconsole.conf.
> > > >>
> > > >> --
> > > >> Rgrds, legion
> > > >>
> > > >> _______________________________________________
> > > >> kbd mailing list
> > > >> kbd at lists.altlinux.org
> > > >> https://lists.altlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/kbd
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Hello,
> > > > Thanks for the fast reply.
> > > > I do have a "systemd" directory, however I don't have a
> > "vconsole.conf" in
> > > > /etc/
> > > >
> > > > :(
> > > >
> > > >
> >  Legion's comment above appears to address the problem (although I've
> > no idea whether you should be using mkinitrd or dracut).  Are there
> > any mageia lists where you can ask for help on this ?  The big
> > questions are whether you are running systemd (probably, but now
> > that udev is part of systemd, the presence of a systemd directory
> > isn't necessarily conclusive!), and how to correctly reconfigure the
> > initrd on Mageia.  All of that is distro-specific.
> >
> > ĸen
> > --
> > das eine Mal als Tragödie, das andere Mal als Farce
> > _______________________________________________
> > kbd mailing list
> > kbd at lists.altlinux.org
> > https://lists.altlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/kbd
> >

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