Arch Linux

kant1

Member

Registered: 2006-11-28

Posts: 57

utf-8 on the console

Does anyone here have a setup that allows them to boot up their computer without X, log in, and cat a file with Chinese characters and see the contents correctly without X?  I know entering text is probably more involved, but what about just being able to see those types of characters?

Any suggestions/help?

Knute

Member

From: Minot, ND

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 604

Re: utf-8 on the console

Check your /etc/locale.gen file, and make sure that you have a chinese locale uncommented.  Then make sure that you regenerate your locale (sudo locale-gen), and you should be in business.

I must admit, that I don't use chinese so had to go and look it up.  It's listed under zh-CN-<something>.  zh-CN-utf8 should do what you want, hopefully. 

HTH

[edit] To boot into the console,  just change the default runlevel in your /etc/inittab file so that it starts with 3 instead of 5.   There is also a boot option that you can use for that as well, I believe.

After another quick google/linux search, it appears that you can just append the runlevel that you want to the boot menu option.

Have fun! 
[/edit

Last edited by Knute (2010-06-09 00:21:10)

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Knute

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: utf-8 on the console

I'm not a guru, but I think you can enter the characters quite easily - by hex value f.e. - but seeing them is tough, as you can have only 512 glyphs in the console. CJKV w/o X is pain in the neck, but you can try to make a pdf/png of the file and view it that way.

eirika

Member

From: New York

Registered: 2009-09-14

Posts: 65

Re: utf-8 on the console

You can try zhcon:

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=6759

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: utf-8 on the console

> You can try zhcon
Or zhcon-debian
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=24057

nexus7

Member

From: brain dump

Registered: 2006-12-06

Posts: 285

Re: utf-8 on the console

@kant: for displaying utf8-CJK atl. you need a framebuffer terminal. For CJK-input you'll further need an input method (editor)/"IM(E)". I use fbterm-ucimf together with openvanilla (don't know why, but zhcon always crashed). For working at login, just enter

fbterm 2>/dev/null

in your .bashrc. ov starts eg with <ctrl><space> then. There are a few depencies, which must be installed in a certain order (what I can't remember in detail at the moment); you may have a look at the links shown in the AUR.

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