Bug#279252: Please fix x-terminal-emulator for Sarge
Hello X hackers,
please, please fix this bug before Sarge gets released.
Steinar H. Gunderson wrote:
> uxterm is now the default alternative for x-terminal-emulator; however,
> debian-installer does not set an UTF-8 locale for my language (nb_NO).
I just ran into this bug with my fresh Sarge install, too. :-(
> Thus, I'd expect uxterm to behave like Branden thought it did; quote
> Branden on IRC: "uxterm doesn't start a UTF-8 xterm if no UTF-8 locale
> is set".
>
> However, uxterm does. If no UTF-8 locale is set (in LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE or
> LANG), uxterm forcibly adds .UTF-8 to one of those ands starts an xterm
> with -u8. From my point of view, this is broken;
IMO this behaviour is not broken, but a special feature. Though this
might be a matter of debate.
However, as long as uxterm overrides the current locale, it _clearly_
should not be given a higher priority than the plain xterm in the Debian
alternatives system.
> I am using a non-UTF-8
> locale (and don't even have any UTF-8 locales generated), yet
> x-terminal-emulator (which is the default in almost all window managers
> in Debian) starts up using UTF-8. This means that my xterms suddenly use
> a different character set from my aterms or eterms or whatnot, and even
> more important, they use a different character set from my ssh sessions
> and Linux consoles.
They use a different character set and thus, with no UTF locale
available, a broken keymap. I think this will break x-terminal-emulator
for _many_ new installed Sarge systems.
To make it worse, the x-terminal-emulator alternative was bound to plain
xterm in Woody, and the change is hidden deep in the changelog.
So I strongly second Steinar's proposal (of which I prefer the first
solution):
> My proposed solution is to do one or more of the following (in no
> particular order):
>
> 1. Make xterm the default x-terminal-emulator again.
> 2. Make uxterm not mess with the locale if it isn't UTF-8.
> 3. Make debian-installer set UTF-8 locales by default for _all_
> languages.
Please do not let Sarge ship with this bug.
All the best,
Nikolaus
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