Following code copies console font from tty2 to tty3 and tty3 becomes unreadable #include <fcntl.h> #include <sys/ioctl.h> #include <linux/kd.h> #include <unistd.h> int main() { int tty3 = open("/dev/tty3", O_RDWR); if (tty3 < 0) return 1; console_font_op cfo = {}; cfo.op = KD_FONT_OP_COPY; cfo.height = 2 - 1; // from tty2 ioctl(tty3, KDFONTOP, &cfo); close(tty3); return 0; } Steps to reproduce: 1 Go to tty2 and change font with size different from current. For example, run setfont UniCyr_8x8 2 Run here compiled code from above 3 Go to tty3 and see it See also https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/2784