[Solved] Can't setup Unicode properly

impguard · 2017-11-06 01:48:12

I've searched around and I can't seem to setup Unicode properly on my installation.

Context: Setup ArchLinux on my Virtualbox with Grub/xfce following Youtube + the Wiki guide. When I run something like

echo -e "\xE2\x98\xA0"

I get a weird string of english characters with accent marks.

locale prints out

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

I'm using the default terminal emulator xfce provides. I'm not actually sure which one that is.

What am I missing here?

Last edited by impguard (2017-11-07 03:51:03)

circleface · 2017-11-06 03:24:20

Do you have a font installed that supports that character? Your echo command works fine for me. Also, you should not follow random youtube videos, because they are almost always out of date or just plain wrong.

cfr · 2017-11-06 04:13:14

You probably want LC_COLLATE to be C, but that isn't the problem here.

Assuming the echo should give something a bit like an 'x' (maybe a multiplication symbol), it works fine for me.

Is the problem specific to that emulator? What if you try on another tty outside X?

fuyuki · 2017-11-06 04:18:46

The only time I've had bizarre text spat at me under UTF-8 anything is when I haven't had a compatible font available...

The default Xfce terminal is just the (simply named enough) Xfce(4) Terminal. I used it just yesterday and it had no trouble with non-ASCII characters, so I don't think that's the problem, though it wouldn't hurt to check.

cfr · 2017-11-06 04:26:37

fuyuki wrote:

The only time I've had bizarre text spat at me under UTF-8 anything is when I haven't had a compatible font available...

You've evidently led a sheltered life.

fuyuki · 2017-11-06 04:48:57

cfr wrote:

You've evidently led a sheltered life.

?☜☹☹????✌✡?☜

impguard · 2017-11-06 06:27:55

Well, I'll take a look thanks for the information.

I installed ttf-freefont and ttf-dejavu because I thought it might be the font. My understanding is that they support unicode but it still shows like when I run the echo command above. This is the same when I run in the default tty environment.

Ôÿá

I don't believe I followed a "random" youtube video. I double checked most of the steps with the wiki and with Google (this forum helped a bit) just to understand each command and what the purpose was. Overall, everything worked out great except this.

Two side questions that may be related:

(1) When selecting the fonts in the terminal (through the GUI) it seems to only show a few of the fonts. For example, I can't select Dejavu Sans Mono, and only Dejavu Sand Mono Book. Is there a limitation on which fonts can be used in a terminal emulator?
(2) The emulator suggests the use of a "default system font" if you don't select a custom font. How does one set the "default system font"? The GUI suggests being able to set a system font, but apparently there's a difference between the system font and the system mono font?

Thanks for the help!

impguard · 2017-11-06 06:31:51

The heck the answer is simple...

Under the menu Terminal>Set Encoding it wasn't defaulting to my default encoding (utf-8). Instead it was set to IBM 850.

Strange that it wasn't set to the default, I swear I never set that myself...

But now it's fine!

jasonwryan · 2017-11-06 07:13:21

Please remember to mark your thread as [Solved] by editing your first post and prepending it to the title.

cfr · 2017-11-06 16:45:33

For system font configuration, checkout fontconfig in the wiki.

Arch Linux

#1 2017-11-06 01:48:12

[Solved] Can't setup Unicode properly

#2 2017-11-06 03:24:20

Re: [Solved] Can't setup Unicode properly

#3 2017-11-06 04:13:14

Re: [Solved] Can't setup Unicode properly

#4 2017-11-06 04:18:46

Re: [Solved] Can't setup Unicode properly

#5 2017-11-06 04:26:37

Re: [Solved] Can't setup Unicode properly

#6 2017-11-06 04:48:57

Re: [Solved] Can't setup Unicode properly

#7 2017-11-06 06:27:55

Re: [Solved] Can't setup Unicode properly

#8 2017-11-06 06:31:51

Re: [Solved] Can't setup Unicode properly

#9 2017-11-06 07:13:21

Re: [Solved] Can't setup Unicode properly

#10 2017-11-06 16:45:33

Re: [Solved] Can't setup Unicode properly

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