Unicode (hell)

xerxes2 · 2004-08-30 04:43:35

I have a little trouble with utf-8.

I just wonder if it's possible for Arch to move everything over to utf-8?

Are there packages that still don't support it?

I recompiled vim with mbyte support, but it still not working in terminal.

I don't know much about computer internals, like Bash and other interpreters(Python etc), maybe it's impossible to make utf-8 default enabled?

Utf-8 is backwards compatible with ASCII so that should not be any problems, hopefully.

If utf-8 works, charsets will never be a problem ever again.
It supports every character on earth.

mitya · 2004-09-13 17:48:35

xerxes2 wrote:

If utf-8 works, charsets will never be a problem ever again.
It supports every character on earth.

Mmmm... not exactly. If it did, we would not have utf-16 and utf-32. utf-8 just isn't enough to include all those Asian languages, especially Chinese. It will make our lives a lot easier, you're absolutely right there.

About your problem. The packages you might have trouble with are ncurses and everything depending on it, including mc. Not sure about Arch, but in Redhat/Fedora it comes with unicode support built-in. Also, for vim, you might need to include in compile options something called "langmap"(not sure about the exact name), to enable multi-language support. Shouldn't be any problems with qt/gtk-2 packages, but for console/gtk-1 you'll need to hack one app at a time.
Good luck!

P.S. Detailed success reports will be highly appreciated.

xerxes2 · 2004-09-13 19:20:38

hi
thanks for the comment.

If I remember correctly Utf-8 sequences can be 6 bytes long and maybe 1 or 2 bytes is going away in description of the following bytes it should atleast have 4 bytes to the character itself so it makes all other charsets obsolet.

I just don't know if shells, terminals, filesystems, interpreters etc supports it.
I recompiled vim and have utf-8 enabled in my bashrc but it still don't work.
Maybe next release.....

scottro · 2004-09-14 01:09:38

utf-8 (heh, I mistyped it as utf-9 and didn't notice till the end, which could have been amusing) still has a good many problems, in my opinion, at least with Japanese.

At one point I went through various distros trying the various terminals ith UTF-8--had about 50 percent success. Anyone interested can view the utf-8 section of my page on Japanese in *nix at

http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/jpninpt.html

I wish it would become the standard--at present, between MS, Mac and the various *nix's, there are too many versions of Japanese input.

xerxes2 · 2004-09-14 10:19:58

I found out that aterm don't support utf-8,
xterm should do it I think if I recompile it.

UTF-8 is really nice when it works!
I'm bad at japanese but here are some greece, cyrrillic and some other stuff.

Ю Ж ∫ ⋽ Ω ⌘

zeppelin · 2004-09-14 12:48:44

yeah having utf8 by default and everywhere would be the paradise on earth... and that would make archlinux bleeding edge in the encoding era too

I know Unicode and Utf8,16 and so on are out for a while now, but half the globe thinks that 0-128 is all they need ;(

Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω

Xentac · 2004-09-14 23:11:13

Xterm's unicode counterpart is uxterm.

xerxes2 · 2004-09-15 09:11:31

I've tried seven terminals with no luck and then I found this :

pkgname=rxvt-unicode
pkgver=4.0
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Unicode terminal"
url=""
license=""
depends=()
makedepends=()
conflicts=()
replaces=()
backup=()
install=
source=(http://dist.schmorp.de/rxvt-unicode/rxvt-unicode-4.0.tar.bz2)

build() {
  cd $startdir/src/$pkgname-$pkgver
  ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-everything
  make || return 1
  make prefix=$startdir/pkg/usr install
}

New version out this week.
Now I can read UTF-8 but I can't input swedish characters...strange.
I've also found out that Anjutas built-in terminal works perfectly, both input and output.

Edit: This terminal probably smokes everything else on the market.
but still no swedish input, just output.
I added "--enable-everything" to the PKGBUILD so you can have transparency , TTF fonts and so forth...

Fox · 2004-09-19 17:31:33

And what about Utf-8 in the standart console or the gnome terminal?

xerxes2 · 2004-09-19 20:40:47

Yes, gnome-terminal works Fox.
now I got swedish keyboard, english locale and utf-8 encoding.
thanks

Edit: it takes over 6mb memory but I don't give a rat.

Fox · 2004-09-20 12:53:55

Yes, gnome-terminal works but not the standart console.

Arch Linux

#1 2004-08-30 04:43:35

Unicode (hell)

#2 2004-09-13 17:48:35

Re: Unicode (hell)

#3 2004-09-13 19:20:38

Re: Unicode (hell)

#4 2004-09-14 01:09:38

Re: Unicode (hell)

#5 2004-09-14 10:19:58

Re: Unicode (hell)

#6 2004-09-14 12:48:44

Re: Unicode (hell)

#7 2004-09-14 23:11:13

Re: Unicode (hell)

#8 2004-09-15 09:11:31

Re: Unicode (hell)

#9 2004-09-19 17:31:33

Re: Unicode (hell)

#10 2004-09-19 20:40:47

Re: Unicode (hell)

#11 2004-09-20 12:53:55

Re: Unicode (hell)

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