Synchronizing between Windows and Linux: character encoding problem
Hello there!
I am trying to synchronize files between a laptop running either Windows
XP or Debian and a Debian file server. I have tried rsync and unison on
the Linux install of the laptop and rsync (under Cygwin) on the Windows
install, but both were unable to transfer files with special characters
(here: German umlauts) correctly.
The situation is as follows: the file server also runs a samba server.
Files with umlauts that are created under Windows can be transferred to
the file server without problems. When the share on the server is viewed
with the Windows Explorer, these files have all the umlauts intact.
Example (I hope you can read these at all!):
LOCAL FILE (Windows) REMOTE FILE (Debian, viewed from Windows)
test-äöü-from-win.txt test-äöü-from-win.txt
When viewed locally on the file server, the umlauts are missing:
file-server:~$ ls test-*
test-???-from-win.txt
They cannot be made visible by appending "--show-control-chars"
file-server:~$ ls --show-control-chars tes*
test-
-from-win.txt
Note the line-break!
When the file is created on the Debian install on the laptop and then
transferred to the Debian server via unison or rsync, it gets corrupted,
too. The situation is different from above when looking at the file from
Windows or locally (i.e. on the server)
LOCAL (Debian laptop) REMOTE (Debian server, viewed from Windows)
test-äöü-from-linux.txt test-õ÷³-from-linux.txt
On the server the situation is different again:
file-server:~$ ls tes*
test-???-from-linux.txt
file-server:~$ ls --show-control-chars tes*
test-äöü-from-linux.txt
Question:
What causes this behaviour and is there a solution? It seems like
everything is fine as long one only works with samba and shares, but gets
corrupted when Linux tools come into play.
BTW, I have also tried this with rsync under Cygwin on the Windows side:
the effect is the same! Thus it seems to be linked to rsync/unison maybe.
Tank you very much for any answers!!!
Stefan Gößling-Reisemann (debian @ goessling . de)
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