From 1118b1757d67c5e7deb4c9e4b864b00f9d8a8b0c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bruce Dubbs Date: Tue, 24 May 2016 21:24:59 +0000 Subject: Create branches/merge in svn repo fo rtesting of merged LFS books git-svn-id: http://svn.linuxfromscratch.org/LFS/branches/merge@11073 4aa44e1e-78dd-0310-a6d2-fbcd4c07a689 --- chapter07/locale.xml | 152 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 152 insertions(+) create mode 100644 chapter07/locale.xml (limited to 'chapter07/locale.xml') diff --git a/chapter07/locale.xml b/chapter07/locale.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000..76dbb7251 --- /dev/null +++ b/chapter07/locale.xml @@ -0,0 +1,152 @@ + + + %general-entities; +]> + + + + + Configuring the System Locale + + + /etc/locale.conf + + + The /etc/locale.conf below sets some + environment variables necessary for native language support. Setting + them properly results in: + + + + The output of programs translated into the native language + + + Correct classification of characters into letters, digits and other + classes. This is necessary for bash to properly accept + non-ASCII characters in command lines in non-English locales + + + The correct alphabetical sorting order for the country + + + Appropriate default paper size + + + Correct formatting of monetary, time, and date values + + + + Replace <ll> below with the two-letter code + for the desired language (e.g., en) and + <CC> with the two-letter code for the appropriate + country (e.g., GB). <charmap> should + be replaced with the canonical charmap for your chosen locale. Optional + modifiers such as @euro may also be present. + + The list of all locales supported by Glibc can be obtained by running + the following command: + +locale -a + + Charmaps can have a number of aliases, e.g., ISO-8859-1 + is also referred to as iso8859-1 and iso88591. + 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 + the canonical name, run the following command, where <locale + name> is the output given by locale -a for + your preferred locale (en_GB.iso88591 in our example). + +LC_ALL=<locale name> locale charmap + + For the en_GB.iso88591 locale, the above command + will print: + +ISO-8859-1 + + This results in a final locale setting of en_GB.ISO-8859-1. + It is important that the locale found using the heuristic above is tested prior + to it being added to the Bash startup files: + +LC_ALL=<locale name> locale language +LC_ALL=<locale name> locale charmap +LC_ALL=<locale name> locale int_curr_symbol +LC_ALL=<locale name> locale int_prefix + + The above commands should print the language name, the character + encoding used by the locale, the local currency, and the prefix to dial + before the telephone number in order to get into the country. If any of the + commands above fail with a message similar to the one shown below, this means + that your locale was either not installed in Chapter 6 or is not supported by + the default installation of Glibc. + +locale: Cannot set LC_* to default locale: No such file or directory + + If this happens, you should either install the desired locale using the + localedef command, or consider choosing a different locale. + Further instructions assume that there are no such error messages from + Glibc. + + + 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 if the locale does not exactly match one of the character + map names in its internal files: + +Warning: locale not supported by Xlib, locale set to C + + In several cases Xlib expects that the character map will be listed in + uppercase notation with canonical dashes. For instance, "ISO-8859-1" rather + than "iso88591". It is also possible to find an appropriate specification by + removing the charmap part of the locale specification. This can be checked + by running the locale charmap command in both locales. + For example, one would have to change "de_DE.ISO-8859-15@euro" to + "de_DE@euro" in order to get this locale recognized by Xlib. + + Other packages can also function incorrectly (but may not necessarily + display any error messages) if the locale name does not meet their expectations. + In those cases, investigating how other Linux distributions support your locale + might provide some useful information. + + Once the proper locale settings have been determined, create the + /etc/locale.conf file: + +cat > /etc/locale.conf << "EOF" +LANG=<ll>_<CC>.<charmap><@modifiers> +EOF + + Note that you can modify /etc/locale.conf with + systemd localectl utility. To use localectl + for the example above, run: + +localectl set-locale LANG="<ll>_<CC>.<charmap><@modifiers>" + + You can also specify other language specific environment variables such + as LANG, LC_CTYPE, LC_NUMERIC or + any other environment variable from locale output. Just + separate them with a space. An example where LANG is set as + en_US.UTF-8 but LC_CTYPE is set as just en_US is: + +localectl set-locale LANG="en_US.UTF-8" LC_CTYPE="en_US" + + Please note that localectl command can + be used only on a system booted with systemd. + + The C (default) and en_US (the recommended + one for United States English users) locales are different. C + 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 ls 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 sent (the charset in the outgoing mail is indicated as unknown + 8-bit). So you can use the C locale only if you are sure that + you will never need 8-bit characters. + + UTF-8 based locales are not supported well by many programs. + Work is in progress to document and, if possible, fix such problems, see + . + + -- cgit v1.2.3-54-g00ecf