Re: D-I and UTF-8

[Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry@computer.org>]

Am Luan, 2004-02-02 ag 17:39, scríobh Nikolai Prokoschenko:
> Hello!
> 
> I must have missed the discussion, as this question should have been
> raised several times: If the first stage of the installer uses UTF-8
> anyway, wouldn't it be wiser to configure the second step also into
> UTF-8 and thus make UTF-8 the default encoding?
> 
> BTW, I know the console is currently almost uncapable of UTF-8, but
> anyway -- it won't ever be, as I see it... Redhat has done the step,
> what should be done, so that Debian can also?
> 

The problem is that it in some circumstances _reduces_ functionality at
the moment.

With a UTF-8 console you lose the ability to do compose characters (eg.
accents). 
ie a de_DE.ISO_8859-15 locale allows you to enter accents, but a
de_DE.UTF-8 one doesn't: the problem is that the kernel ABI (even in
2.6) defines
(char base, char diactritic) -> char result_char

(See struct kbdiacr in /usr/include/linux/kd.h) 

This works for simple 8-bit locales (eg ISO-8859, ru_KOI8), etc but
breaks UTF-8, which requires strings.

Using UTF-8 makes X11 easier but breaks console functionality. Lets go
to UTF-8 by default when either
(1) the kernel is fixed
(2) We jump straight to X.

- Alastair McKinstry


> -- 
> Nikolai Prokoschenko 
> nikolai@prokoschenko.de / Jabber: pronik@jabber.org
-- 
Slán agus Beannacht,
Alastair

Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry@debian.org>
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