[SOLVED] Change keyboard layout while installing in Debug mode

[fred9461]

Hi,

I'm trying to install Proxmox VE 8 on a N305 device, and encounter a fatal error "Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices" described here https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/generic-solution-when-install-gets-framebuffer-mode-fails.111577/

The default keyboard is "US", and I need to set it to "FR" (azerty) to make it easier to edit the files as described.

Is there a command to use in this mode ? I tried loadkeys (fr), setxkbmap, and localectl, but nothing works.

I can of course edit the /etc/default/keyboard file but if I'm right it needs a reboot to be taken into account (and the the file is set back to the original one)

Any idea?

Thank you

 

[cheiss]

Hi,

I'm trying to install Proxmox VE 8 on a N305 device, and encounter a fatal error "Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices"

Have you tried installing in console mode? And if that does not work, using the nomodeset option under the "Advanced Options" menu?

Is there a command to use in this mode ? I tried loadkeys (fr), setxkbmap, and localectl, but nothing works.

Have you tried running setxkbmap fr nodeadkeys?

I can of course edit the /etc/default/keyboard file but if I'm right it needs a reboot to be taken into account (and the the file is set back to the original one)

You can apply these changes without a reboot by running setupcon.

The above two steps are exactly what the installer does as well to set the keyboard layout.

 

[fred9461]

Thank you. During my first install I was using a pretty old USB key (USB2) for the Proxmox ISO.

As I had to go further with some tests, I replaced this stick with a USB3 (the first idea was just to save some time while writing the testing ISOs with Etcher if I had to test other distros)

And guess what? With USB3 stick, the installation X server started right away (no more "Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices") and I could start the GUI (even standard setup)

I cannot really understand why this would be related, but as it worked I was then fine with the keyboard setup in the regular installation (GUI)

 

[cheiss]

Sounds indeed weird, but glad to hear you could solve it anyway in some other way!

Please just mark the thread as solved by editing the first post - there should be a dropdown near
the title field. This helps other people with the same problem to more easily find this thread in
the future!

 

[fred9461]

Just a quick followup about the keyboard config as it was the initial subject (I started the installation again to check which solution was OK)
- setxkbmap fr nodeadkeys => returns "Cannot open Display (Default Display)"
- Editing the config with nano /etc/default/keyboard to set the good locale, then use the setupcon command is working perfectly

 

[RolandK]

this is more a linux basic question but proxmox specific, but i also was a little bit confused when in debug mode i had wrong keyboard and tried "loadkeys de" to get german keyboard, but that didn't work, so a was lost for a while...

apparently, the keyboard maps are missing per default in proxmox, because console-common and console-data packages are not installed . this seems to be debian default, too. i have some debian 10 around and it's missing there, too.

since when did setupcon replace loadkeys for setting up keyboard?

it seems setupcon is a slow shellscript doing complex stuff and spawning 54 sub-processes, compiling keymap from xkb map, whereas loadkeys is some binary program.

any reason why console-data is not installed by default , as most people may better know loadkeys instead of setupcon) ?
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=837292#c4

root@pbsvm:~# time strace -f loadkeys de 2>&1 |wc -l
3378

real    0m0.870s
user    0m0.158s
sys    0m0.652s
root@pbsvm:~# time strace -f setupcon -k 2>&1 | wc -l
17466

real    0m5.663s
user    0m1.650s
sys    0m3.077s


root@pbsvm:/etc# time setupcon -k
WARNING: Unknown X keysym "dead_belowmacron"
WARNING: Unknown X keysym "dead_belowmacron"
WARNING: Unknown X keysym "dead_belowmacron"
WARNING: Unknown X keysym "dead_belowmacron"

real    0m0.903s
user    0m0.773s
sys    0m0.124s

root@pbsvm:/etc# time loadkeys de

real    0m0.052s
user    0m0.026s
sys    0m0.023s

setupcon is nearly 20 times slower then loadkeys

 

[RolandK]

ok. seems there is some caching implemented so when a compiled keymap is there, it won't be that bad. will only happen to be ineffective when invoked directly via setupcon -k , but not at boot time from systemd/init

root@pve8:/etc/init.d# strace -f /lib/console-setup/keyboard-setup.sh 2>&1|grep execv
execve("/lib/console-setup/keyboard-setup.sh", ["/lib/console-setup/keyboard-setu"...], 0x7ffdc7e2c858 /* 21 vars */) = 0
[pid 3255] execve("/etc/console-setup/cached_setup_keyboard.sh", ["/etc/console-setup/cached_setup_"...], 0x55d6328069f8 /* 21 vars */ <unfinished ...>
[pid 3255] <... execve resumed>) = 0
[pid 3256] execve("/usr/bin/kbd_mode", ["kbd_mode", "-u"], 0x55d022abc8b8 /* 21 vars */ <unfinished ...>
[pid 3256] <... execve resumed>) = 0
[pid 3257] execve("/usr/bin/loadkeys", ["loadkeys", "/etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_"...], 0x55d0242ca6d8 /* 21 vars */ <unfinished ...>
[pid 3257] <... execve resumed>) = 0
[pid 3258] execve("/bin/sh", ["sh", "-c", "gzip -d -c /etc/console-setup/ca"...], 0x7ffe50bbc230 /* 21 vars */ <unfinished ...>
[pid 3258] <... execve resumed>) = 0
[pid 3259] execve("/usr/bin/gzip", ["gzip", "-d", "-c", "/etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_"...], 0x5594e2048868 /* 21 vars */ <unfinished ...>
[pid 3259] <... execve resumed>) = 0
root@pve8:/etc/init.d#