Re: displaying Japanese in the virtual consoles/terminals in squeeze
(Forgot to reply to list.)
On 12/26/11, Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sun, Dec 25, 2011 at 09:10:48PM +0900, Joel Rees wrote:
>> For reasons I don't care to debate, I have set my system's default
>> language to Japanese. When I go to work in the virtual console windows
>> (for instance, apt-get), I tend to get messages that should be in
>> Japanese, but the Japanese is replaced by the Unicode replacement
>> characters ("?"), which is no problem unless I hit some errors. Which,
>> of course is a problem..
>
> Normal Linux console is only good for UTF-8 within latin-like
> characters.
>
>> Trying to search the web for this, and all I can see is old stuff,
>> stuff about game consoles, and stuff about setting up X11. I know I
>> should be able to get better results, but I'm not very imaginative.
>
> For example, Debian console installer runs on virtual console with
> japanese display or any fancy characters. This is because they run
> special terminal program.
>
>> Should be the same set of issues, except for the specific parameters,
>> for any large-character-set language.
>
> jfbterm
> fbterm-ucimf
> fbterm
> bogl-bterm
apt-get show fbterm tells me fbterm is installed, but I don't see any
.fbtermrc files in the user directories when I login to the virtual
consoles.
Do you have a recommendation?
> Try one of these with appropriate font packages. I think you can get
> Japanese display.
The man page for fbterm doesn't seem to be telling me how to set it
up. I'm going to have to re-read it a few times, I guess.
>> Anyone with a clue for me?
>
> But for all practical purpose, Use X or run aptitude on normal Linux
> console under any Locale with:
>
> $ sudo LANGUAGE=fr_FR.UTF-8 aptitude
> or
> $ sudo LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 aptitude
>
> Then you can read it :-)
>
> Osamu
>
Well, I've had running X11 sessions fight with upgraded X11 packages
in the past, and had to manually cycle power to bring the system back
up (no ping, even), so I prefer to do the apt-get upgrade in a virtual
console shell, where X11 can stay out of the way.
As for why the system itself is set up in Japanese, well, I have not
been able to bring my children up bi-lingual, and I want them to be
able to get around my computers, I've habitually set them up Japanese.
(Now that my son is in high school, I sometimes question the wisdom of
this plan. But there's no way to teach the guy the reasons why without
letting him do stupid things, so I just put up with it.)
Joel Rees
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