this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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I have installed noto-fonts-cjk but the Linux kernel terminal won't display Japanese/Chinese characters.

Environment:
ThinkPad T480
Arch Linux

Edit: I managed to track down this page https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Linux_console and realize that I need to setfont. Now I just need to find which one in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts can display Japanese, I suppose.

Edit2: looked through https://adeverteuil.github.io/linux-console-fonts-screenshots/ to no avail.

Edit3: this thread https://askubuntu.com/questions/193391/how-do-i-display-chinese-japanese-characters-in-a-linux-vt-console hints at this not being a possibility, because - paraphrased - the framebuffer can't hold 2000 characters, which is what I would like it to be able to display.

Edit4: as pointed out in the above askubuntu thread, and as @mina86@lemmy.wtf secondarily recommends, fbterm seems to be the solution: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fbterm

Edit5: kmscon also seems to be able to display CJK: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KMSCON

Marking as SOLVED, but I have not yet tried replacing the Linux kernel terminal. That'll have to wait until next weekend.

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Thanks! If and when I really need to display Japanese, I'll switch to my graphical environment. My old T480 is having a hard time playing 4K vids unless I play them directly from the console, for some reason...

I'll check out fbterm too!