Hello,

I'm trying to install gentoo, but before I start off I'd really like to know how to scroll in the console on a laptop.

I'm not talking about xterm, gterm or anything like that.
I'm also not talking about screen.

Just the console. I have no dedicated pgup/pgdown keys.
shift+pgup/pgdown -> doesn't work
fn+pgup/pgdown -> doesn't work.
I tried everything google came up with.
I'm at a loss.

EDIT: problem solved, it was between chair and keyboard. It appears I did not use my eyes properly. Keyboard has dedicated pgup and pgdown keys after all. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Probably all of the above - <Shift>-<Fn>-<pgup/dn>
I think one of out netbooky things is like that.

I'm pretty sure scroll is a terminal function. Not sure you can do that in console.

It depends what the kernel scrollback buffer is set to. Usually, on an install system its 64K. syg00 has advised that perhaps the pgup and pgdn keys are activated by the Fn (blue) key. So, since you need SHFT+pgup to scroll, and you need Fn+pgup for pgup, you would need Fn+SHFT+pgup to scroll back. But the scrollback buffer won't work until you log into the system.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I do have a numeric keypad and I do have the arrow keys, just not the section of dedicated pgup/pgdown keys.

Well, tried fn+shift+pgup... fn+pgup doesn't work either with numlock off and on.

The scrollback buffer uses SHFT+pgup, pgdn. The arrow keys won't work. But if you're doing something in console and you want to scroll back and forward, you can pipe whatever it is to less.will allow you to view more than one screenfull using arrows, pgup, pgdn and other functions.

If you want to scroll back in the boot messages, use and they'll all be there. will work too.

so basically your keyboard does not have pgup/pgdn keys, and you need to find a software solution that re-assigns some other key (combination) in a non-graphical console session?

just wondering, why do you need to scroll console?
may be you do not need it at all...
You could install gentoo from any liveCD/USB with GUI. It's much more handy and comfortable to use GUI tools like konsole or xterm or gterm instead of CLI (console).
And you could use firefox to refer online Gentoo handbook.

Shift + PageUp
Shift + PageDown

on normal keyboards

Some laptops have a shift+fn to change "modes" so that part of the qwerty keyboard becomes a number pad. Which might also activate the pageup and pagedown keys, just don't hit fn again to deactivate it. On my hp stream 11 it's Shift+Fn+UpCursor (which says pageup in small print), and DownCursor for the other.

Short answer, use a usb keyboard with dedicated keys.

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Try ScrLk then the arrow keys.