Kmscon is a simple terminal emulator based on linux kernel mode setting (KMS). It is an attempt to replace the in-kernel VT implementation with a userspace console. See kmscon(1) man-page for usage information.
Kmscon requires the following software:
- libtsm: terminal emulator state machine
- libudev: providing input, video, etc. device hotplug support (>=v172)
- libxkbcommon: providing internationalized keyboard handling
- linux-headers: linux kernel headers for ABI definitions
For video output at least one of the following is required:
- libdrm: graphics access to DRM/KMS subsystemDRM: For unaccelerated drm output the "libdrm" library must be installed and accessible via pkg-config.
- OpenGLES2: For accelerated video output via OpenGLESv2 the following must be installed: libdrm, libgbm, egl, glesv2 (i.e., mesa)
- fbdev: For framebuffer video output the kernel headers must be installed and located in the default include path, and the kernel built with fbdev device support (which is disabled on some distributions).
For font handling the following is required:
- 8x16: The 8x16 font is a static built-in font which does not require external dependencies.
- unifont:Embed unifont in kmscon, this requires no external dependencies.
- freetype: lightweight font rendering, using only freetype2 and fontconfig.
- pango: drawing text with Pango requires: glib, pango, fontconfig, freetype2 and more
- libseat: Kmscon can take a seat with libseat . In this case you must have either systemd-logind, elogind, or seatd configured. It allows to run kmscon as a regular user, and configure which GPU/input device are allowed for kmscon. The drawback is that kmscon-launch-gui won't work to launch another GUI that uses libseat, as the seat is already in use.
- If libseat is not present, kmscon will use its own VT handling, or a fake backend if VT is disabled in the kernel.
- ncurses You need the
ticexecutable from ncurses, to build kmscon.ti into a binary terminfo definition.
On Debian-based system, to install the systemd service files in the right location, you need to install systemd-dev.
sudo apt install systemd-devTo build with manpages and documentation, the following is required:
- xsltproc (packaged as
libxsltin Fedora, orxsltprocin Ubuntu/Debian) - docbook stylesheets (packaged as
docbook-style-xslin Fedora, ordocbook-xslin Ubuntu/Debian)
Released tarballs can be found at: https://github.com/kmscon/kmscon/releases
To compile the kmscon binary, run the standard meson commands:
meson setup builddir/By default this will install into /usr/local, you can change your prefix with --prefix=/usr
(or meson configure builddir/ -Dprefix=/usr after the initial meson setup).
Then build and install. Note that this requires ninja.
meson install -C builddir/The following meson options are available. They can be used to select backends for several subsystems in kmscon. If build-time dependencies cannot be satisfied, an option is automatically turned off, except if you explicitly enable it via command line:
| option | default | description |
|---|---|---|
extra_debug |
false |
Additional debug outputs |
libseat |
auto |
Use libseat to get access to device (DRM and inputs) |
video_fbdev |
auto |
Linux fbdev video backend |
video_drm2d |
auto |
Linux DRM software-rendering backend |
video_drm3d |
auto |
Linux DRM hardware-rendering backend |
font_unifont |
auto |
Static built-in font, with integer scaling (Unicode Unifont) |
font_freetype |
auto |
Freetype2 based scalable font renderer, also handle bitmap fonts |
font_pango |
auto |
Pango based scalable font renderer |
renderer_gltex |
auto |
OpenGLESv2 accelerated renderer |
docs |
auto |
Build manpages and documentation |
term |
kmscon |
Default $TERM value |
To get usage information, run:
kmscon --helpYou can then run kmscon with:
kmscon [options]Kmscon queries and setups system locale settings before starting if built with dbus enabled.
Otherwise, you can change locale settings via --xkb-{model,layout,variant,options} command line options.
See man kmscon for more information.
The default configuration file is /etc/kmscon/kmscon.conf. Any command line option can be put in the config file in
its long form without the leading -- (double dash). See man kmscon for more information or look at kmscon.conf
loadkeys doesn't work in kmscon, as it doesn't use the kernel tty for input.
You can configure the layout in kmscon.conf, or in the command line.
If you build kmscon with dbus support, you can also change the layout at runtime with localectl set-keymap <keymap>
setfont doesn't work, as it sets the kernel font. you can configure the font in kmscon.conf
font-engine=freetype
font-size=18
# font-name is only for freetype/pango. Unifont and 8x16 uses their own bitmap.
font-name=Hack Nerd Font
As kmscon is already using the GPU, starting a Desktop environment, or a graphic application won't work, as it won't be able to take the GPU. There is a script, kmscon-launch-gui that put kmscon in the background, and is able to start a gui application.
kmscon-launch-gui kmscube -c 100
For some application like mpv, you need an additional wayland compositor, or the keyboard input won't work.
kmscon-launch-gui cage -- mpv test.mp4
This software is licensed under the terms of an MIT-like license. Please see
COPYING for further information.
This project was maintained in Aetf's fork for 11 years, before coming back here in 2025