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authorArchaic <archaic@linuxfromscratch.org>2005-12-26 19:46:12 +0000
committerArchaic <archaic@linuxfromscratch.org>2005-12-26 19:46:12 +0000
commit94aa662138576c22deef1642b3b2b302ad075a82 (patch)
tree38766a292ed556718529449133b71b25138df9b8 /chapter07/profile.xml
parent5536f7440f2f4a12782e8d741cbbba5f1c3cfea8 (diff)
Reverting UTF-8 changes until everything is in place.
git-svn-id: http://svn.linuxfromscratch.org/LFS/trunk/BOOK@7236 4aa44e1e-78dd-0310-a6d2-fbcd4c07a689
Diffstat (limited to 'chapter07/profile.xml')
-rw-r--r--chapter07/profile.xml53
1 files changed, 15 insertions, 38 deletions
diff --git a/chapter07/profile.xml b/chapter07/profile.xml
index ae7617ba7..dd53a5141 100644
--- a/chapter07/profile.xml
+++ b/chapter07/profile.xml
@@ -69,19 +69,17 @@
for the desired language (e.g., <quote>en</quote>) and
<replaceable>[CC]</replaceable> with the two-letter code for the appropriate
country (e.g., <quote>GB</quote>). <replaceable>[charmap]</replaceable> should
- be replaced with the canonical charmap for your chosen locale. Optional
- modifiers such as <quote>@euro</quote> may also be present.</para>
+ be replaced with the canonical charmap for your chosen locale.</para>
<para>The list of all locales supported by Glibc can be obtained by running
the following command:</para>
<screen role="nodump"><userinput>locale -a</userinput></screen>
- <para>Charmaps can have a number of aliases, e.g. <quote>ISO-8859-1</quote>
+ <para>Locales can have a number of synonyms, e.g. <quote>ISO-8859-1</quote>
is also referred to as <quote>iso8859-1</quote> and <quote>iso88591</quote>.
- Some applications cannot handle the various synonyms correctly (e.g. require
- that "UTF-8" is written as "UTF-8", not "utf8"), so it is safest in most
- cases to choose the canonical name for a particular locale. To determine
+ Some applications cannot handle the various synonyms correctly, so it is
+ safest to choose the canonical name for a particular locale. To determine
the canonical name, run the following command, where <replaceable>[locale
name]</replaceable> is the output given by <command>locale -a</command> for
your preferred locale (<quote>en_GB.iso88591</quote> in our example).</para>
@@ -117,7 +115,6 @@ LC_ALL=[locale name] locale int_prefix</userinput></screen>
Further instructions assume that there are no such error messages from
Glibc.</para>
- <!-- FIXME: the xlib example will became obsolete real soon -->
<para>Some packages beyond LFS may also lack support for your chosen locale. One
example is the X library (part of the X Window System), which outputs the
following error message:</para>
@@ -142,43 +139,23 @@ LC_ALL=[locale name] locale int_prefix</userinput></screen>
<screen><userinput>cat &gt; /etc/profile &lt;&lt; "EOF"
<literal># Begin /etc/profile
-export LANG=<replaceable>[ll]</replaceable>_<replaceable>[CC]</replaceable>.<replaceable>[charmap]</replaceable><replaceable>[@modifiers]</replaceable>
+export LANG=<replaceable>[ll]</replaceable>_<replaceable>[CC]</replaceable>.<replaceable>[charmap]</replaceable>
export INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc
# End /etc/profile</literal>
EOF</userinput></screen>
- <para>The <quote>C</quote> (default) and <quote>en_US</quote> (the recommended
- one for United States English users) locales are different. <quote>C</quote>
- uses the US-ASCII 7-bit character set, and treats bytes with the high bit set
- as invalid characters. That's why, e.g., the <command>ls</command> command
- substitutes them with question marks in that locale. Also, an attempt to send
- mail with such characters from Mutt or Pine results in non-RFC-conforming
- messages being set (the charset in the outgoing mail is indicatsed as "unknown
- 8-bit"). So you can use the <quote>C</quote> locale only if you are sure that
- you will never need 8-bit characters.</para>
-
- <para>UTF-8 based locales are not supported well by many programs. E.g., the
- <command>watch</command> program displays only ASCII characters in UTF-8
- locales and has no such restriction in traditional 8-bit locales like en_US.
- Without patches and/or installing software beyond BLFS, in UTF-8 based locales
- you will not be able to do such basic tasks as printing plain-text files from
- the command line, recording Windows-readable CDs with filenames containing
- non-ASCII characters, viewing ID3v1 tags in MP3 files and so on. It is also
- impossible (without damaging non-ASCII characters) to connect using ssh from
- the system using a UTF-8 based locale to a host that still uses a traditional
- 8-bit locale, and vice versa. In short, use UTF-8 only if you are going to
- use KDE or GNOME and never open the terminal, or if you are going to tolerate
- bugs.</para>
- <!-- All abovementioned problems except "watch" have a known fix beyond BLFS -->
-
<note>
- <para>Bug reports reproducible only in UTF-8 locales and for which there
- is no patch or other fix mentioned in the report, will be closed immediately,
- without investigation, with the "WONTFIX" resolution and a "don't use this
- program or revert to non-UTF-8 locale" comment. Patches that have ill
- effects in non-UTF-8 locales (other than replacement of translated program
- messages with English ones) will be rejected.</para>
+ <para>The <quote>C</quote> (default) and <quote>en_US</quote> (the
+ recommended one for United States English users) locales are different.</para>
</note>
+ <para>Setting the keyboard layout, screen font, and locale-related environment
+ variables are the only internationalization steps needed to support locales
+ that use ordinary single-byte encodings and left-to-right writing direction.
+ More complex cases (including UTF-8 based locales) require additional steps
+ and additional patches because many applications tend to not work properly
+ under such conditions. These steps and patches are not included in the LFS
+ book and such locales are not yet supported by LFS.</para>
+
</sect1>