Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

funkyou · 2006-05-21 21:58:22

Hi there,

have some issues here and i think it has something to do with my locales... I have them since one of the last updates i think...

First problem:
In Kopete, i can send the german "umlaute" (ä, ö, ü) to others and they are sent and displayed correctly at their side... But when they send me these characters, i get only a square and a deleted next-letter-in-the-word by them. This happens with every theme and font combination in kopete. Here is an example:

Second problem:
In Konsole, the "umlaute" are correctly displayed on my folders, but in the messages i get the chars are simply deleted and not visible. This happens in the VC and in Xorg too. Here is another example:

(It should mean "Keine Handbuch Seite für pacman.conf")

My config:
I think i have configured my System properly, well at least i hope that Here are the relevant parts of my config files:

/etc/rc.conf:
LOCALE="de_DE.utf8"
KEYMAP="de"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=

/etc/profile:
export LANG="de_DE.utf8"
export LANGUAGE="de_DE.utf8"

/etc/locale.gen:
de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

And "locale -a" gives me:
C
POSIX
de_DE.utf8
en_US.utf8

The fonts I use:
KDE GUI: Bitstream Vera Sans (everywhere)
Y-Terminal (Konsole) Font: Bitstream Vera Sans mono

So, how can i configure a proper german utf-8? I have already searched the forums (both here and the DE one) and the wiki, but found no solution to this....

THX

Funkyou

n3olynx · 2006-05-21 23:27:40

Have you tried

export LC_ALL="de_DE.utf8"

The archlinux wiki says that you should put that in .bashrc but I added this line in rc.sysinit

echo "export LC_ALL=$LOCALE" >>/etc/profile.d/locale.sh

here is how my rc.sysinit looks for that section

# Set user defined locale
   if [ "$LOCALE" != "" ]; then
            stat_busy "Setting Locale: $LOCALE"
            echo "export LANG=$LOCALE" >>/etc/profile.d/locale.sh
            stat_done

   #       If locale is *.utf set console to Unicode mode
            if [ "`echo $LOCALE | /bin/grep -i utf`" ]; then
                    stat_busy "Setting Consoles to UTF-8"
                    /usr/bin/kbd_mode -u
                    /usr/bin/dumpkeys | /bin/loadkeys --unicode
                    echo 'if [ "$TERM" = "linux" ]; then echo -ne "e%G"; fi' >>/etc/profile.d/locale.sh
                    stat_done
            fi
            echo "export LC_ALL=$LOCALE" >>/etc/profile.d/locale.sh
     fi

you will probably need some fonts that will support your language, but that is how I solved my problem with en_US.UTF-8

funkyou · 2006-05-21 23:45:36

Thx for your suggestions, but they do not seem to solve it...
Btw: I can`t see the content of your last 2 code-tags...

The only thing i know is, that these issues came with one of the last updates. Before everything was working perfectly...

n3olynx · 2006-05-21 23:51:16

hmmm..then it's probably b/c your fonts don't support it. Have you tried installing the ttf-ms-fonts package? I believe some of those fonts support unicode
Also, the code I posted for rc.sysinit only works at boot up

funkyou · 2006-05-22 00:19:06

ttf-ms-fonts are installed here and I did a reboot after modifying rc.sysinit...

Its weird, but I believe that this came with one of the last updates, maybe the freetype or fontconfig ones... I will investigate later...

funkyou · 2006-05-22 07:45:57

I have updated my post with some more information about my config... Well, kopete is not really important, but the behaviour in the terminal drives me crazy...

Romashka · 2006-05-22 08:17:31

You don't need LANG in /etc/profile as it will be overwritten by autogenerated LANG in /etc/profile.d/lang.sh
Have you tried to set CONSOLEFONT?

baze · 2006-05-22 08:59:20

uncomment the line

de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8

in /etc/locale.gen and rerun locale-gen

funkyou · 2006-05-22 13:15:19

Thx for the suggestions, but none of them seems to solve it...

baze:
This line was already uncommented and i have generated my locales for several times now... I have updated my post with the uncommented lines in /etc/locale.gen, just to collect all information...

Romashka:
Ok, but what if the two variables contain the same content? I mean, when i define LANG="de_DE.utf8" in /etc/profile and it is then overwritten by /etc/profile.d/lang.sh with LANG="de_DE.utf8", then this is simply the same variable defined twice with the same content... I have tried to unset the one in /etc/profile, but it did not solve it...

As for CONSOLEFONT, i had never one defined, can anyone suggest me a proper one? And the other question is: Its not working on the terminals, but it is also not working in Xorg, so is this really a CONSOLEFONT issue?

I have tried another thing and switched my locales to de_DE@euro ISO-8859-15, and with this setting the chars appear correctly... But i cannot be the only one where it does not work, i feel so excluded without UTF-8

Have also tried another terminal in Xorg... In XTerm the chars are not deleted like in Kopete or on the VC, but i see an inverted question mark instead of them...

Romashka · 2006-05-22 13:30:57

Try CONSOLEFONT=LatArCyrHeb-16 or CONSOLEFONT=LatArCyrHeb-16+

funkyou · 2006-05-23 08:08:17

I did a fresh install on another box to check out if theres something bOrked with my main installation, but its the same there...

So i switched my locales to de_DE.iso885915@euro for now, i hope that there will be better UTF-8 support in the future...

Arch Linux

#1 2006-05-21 21:58:22

Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

#2 2006-05-21 23:27:40

Re: Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

#3 2006-05-21 23:45:36

Re: Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

#4 2006-05-21 23:51:16

Re: Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

#5 2006-05-22 00:19:06

Re: Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

#6 2006-05-22 07:45:57

Re: Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

#7 2006-05-22 08:17:31

Re: Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

#8 2006-05-22 08:59:20

Re: Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

#9 2006-05-22 13:15:19

Re: Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

#10 2006-05-22 13:30:57

Re: Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

#11 2006-05-23 08:08:17

Re: Howto set up proper utf-8 locales and german umlaute?

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