buffyboard(5)

💖 BUFFYBOARD — the config file, bestie 💖

okay so this is the buffyboard(5) page — it lives in the File Formats Manual, and it's literally just the guide to writing buffyboard's config file. group chat rules apply: one option per line, no chaos. let's get into it 🎀

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

BUFFYBOARD expects a configuration file where every option sits on its own line, formatted like this, bestie:

[section]
<option>=<value>

that's it. that's the whole vibe. 💅

When it launches, BUFFYBOARD goes on a lil scavenger hunt for configuration files in a bunch of locations, and then it merges them all together into one single config. it searches, finds, and merges them in this exact order (so later ones can override earlier ones, iykyk 👀):

• /usr/share/buffyboard/buffyboard.conf
• /usr/share/buffyboard/buffyboard.conf.d/ (alphabetically)
• /etc/buffyboard.conf
• /etc/buffyboard.conf.d/ (alphabetically)
• Override files (in supplied order)

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⭐ OPTIONS ⭐

🎹 Keyboard

• haptic_feedback = <true|false> — turns the lil vibrations on or off when you press keys. Default: true.
• sticky_shift = <true|false> — changes how the shift key behaves. when it's true, the keyboard stays in uppercase mode until you press shift again (sticky, like it's holding your hand 🫶). when it's false, the keyboard flips back to lowercase and shift deactivates as soon as you press a non-modifier key. Default: true.

🎨 Theme

• default = <adwaita-light|adwaita-dark|breezy-light|breezy-dark|nord-light|nord-dark|pmos-light|pmos-dark> — picks the default theme at boot. you can switch to the alternative theme at runtime if you change your mind (very main character of you 💅). Default: breezy-dark.

🖱️ Input

• pointer = <true|false> — enables or disables the use of a hardware mouse or other pointing device. Default: true.
• touchscreen = <true|false> — enables or disables the use of the touchscreen. Default: true.

🙈 Quirks

• fbdev_force_refresh = <true|false> — if it's true and you're using the framebuffer backend, this triggers a display refresh after every single draw operation. heads up though, bestie: this has a negative performance impact. 😭 Default: false.
• ignore_unused_terminals = <true|false> — if it's true, buffyboard won't automatically update the layout of a new terminal and draw the keyboard when that terminal isn't opened by any process. in that case, you should send SIGUSR1 to buffyboard to update the layout instead. ✨

this quirk was introduced to resolve a race between buffyboard and systemd-logind, going down like this:

• A user switches to a new virtual terminal
• Buffyboard opens the terminal and changes the number of rows
• systemd-logind sees that the terminal is opened by some other process and don't start getty@.service

the race gets resolved by enabling this option and installing a drop-in file for getty@.service that sends SIGUSR1 to buffyboard. Default: true.

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• buffyboard(1)

👑 AUTHORS 👑

• Undef <debian@undef.tools>
• Johannes Marbach <n0-0ne@mailbox.org>

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🦋 this was buffyboard for buffyboard(5), dated 2026-06-20 — periodt. go forth and configure slayfully 🌸💖✨