locales conflict with man and x

checkmate3001 · 11-06-2007, 12:43 AM

Hello everyone,

I have read all the old posts about this... but I haven't found a good way to fix my particular problem (except a workaround or two).

I have run dpkg-reconfigure locales and have set my locale to en_US.UTF-8

My problem:
In the bash shell man pages don't have the ' (single quote). Instead they display as square blocks. In X in a terminal window the man pages display perfectly.

If I set my locale to en_US.iso-8859-1 man pages display correctly, but X has some minor issues (UXTerm doesn't load properly - it works, but I think it instead defaults to just XTerm instead - not sure). X also displays errors after I exit.

Same goes if I set my locale to en_US.iso-8859-15.

I'm a little confused by this locale deal. I understand that the locale basically tells your computer where you are using it and what languages and charsets to use... I don't understand why there are three options (UTF-8, iso-8859-1 and iso-8859-15).

What locale should I pick?

How can I get both man and X to speak the same language without characters missing or programs not running oddly?

Do I need to dpkg-reconfigure X to match my new locale settings?

Thank you in advance ladies and gents!

P.S. The one workaround I found was to create an alias for man:

Code:

env LC_ALL="en_US" man <whatever>

or

Code:

env LC_ALL="C" man <whatever>

I instead would like to get it completely figured out. I don't like workarounds... but I suppose I can live with them if I have to.

checkmate3001 · 11-07-2007, 01:51 AM

Hey guys,

I discovered the error of my ways... well, I guess it wasn't technically my error.

I attempted to fix my problem by doing

Quote:

dpkg-reconfigure locales

I selected the appropriate language and charset and then let it do its job. Below is my /etc/locale.gen file:

Code:

# This file lists locales that you wish to have built. You can find a list
# of valid supported locales at /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED. Other
# combinations are possible, but may not be well tested. If you change
# this file, you need to rerun locale-gen.
#
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

I was still having issues with X and man. I could get one to work fine but the other would act strangely. Both would function... but one would always have odd side-effects.

I discovered that the SUPPORTED file listed 3 en_US options:
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_US iso-8859-1
en_US.iso-8859-15 iso-8859-15

**Notice that two of them have a '.' in them followed by a charset, a ' ' (space) and a charset. Onle one has one LANG and one charset separated by spaces.

Well, I got curious. I couldn't figure out why some had '.' in them with two charsets and others had ' ' and one charset.

On a hunch I edited my /etc/locale.gen file:

Code:

# This file lists locales that you wish to have built. You can find a list
# of valid supported locales at /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED. Other
# combinations are possible, but may not be well tested. If you change
# this file, you need to rerun locale-gen.
#
en_US UTF-8

I took out the '.' and the extra charset.

Did a

Code:

locale-gen

Then tested man - No more complaint of:

Quote:

man: can't set the locale; make sure $LC_* and $LANG are correct

or UXTerm issues or complaints from X

I'm ecstatic!

Tinkster · 11-07-2007, 02:20 AM

And it's kind of you to come back and share the experience.

I'm sure it will help others!

Cheers,
Tink

checkmate3001 · 11-07-2007, 02:32 AM

I take that back. I'm back where I started from.

I'm still not sure what is going on.

man still displays white squares for characters such as ' (single quote) and - (text that carries on to next line).

UXTerm works fine - right colors and font/size

I did find that if I did a

Code:

localedef --list-archive

I got back:

Quote:

en_US
en_US.utf8

If I do a

Code:

localedef --delete-from-archive en_US.utf8

UXTerm doesn't have correct colors or font/sizes
Also after shutting down X I get numerous errors about the locale not being right...

I will not rest until I find out what the h3LL is going on.

checkmate3001 · 11-07-2007, 02:50 AM

I think I am COMPLETELY incorrect about changing locale.gen.
I don't think that en_US UTF-8 is correct...
I think it may (perhaps) really be en_US.UTF-8

...

confusing...
...
....

I will definitely post when I get this all sorted out.

jschiwal · 11-07-2007, 03:04 AM

This link may help:
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2...roduction.html

checkmate3001 · 11-07-2007, 03:46 AM

Well...

I found another work-around.

Because it bothered me so much to have man not displaying certain characters I decided to change my locale to en_US.iso-8859-15 (to be honest I have no idea how different this is from iso-8859-1, but it is VERY different than UFT-8 from what I've read).

So I got man working perfectly. Just how I want it.

Next on to X

It seems that for whatever reason (in some way related to UXTerm using UTF-8 and since I'm no longer using UTF-8...) UXTerm doesn't load properly so XTerm takes over. For whatever reason XTerm doesn't display the same colors or fonts that UXTerm once did. To remedy this I found the font I wanted to use (man this is a pain of trial and error even when using gtkfontsel and xfontsel).

I recommend running this command in X to try out the different fonts:

Code:

xterm -font <font selection>

I edited my $HOME/.xinitrc file (create it if it doesn't exist) and included this line:

Code:

xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources

I edited my .Xresources file (create it if it doesn't exist) and included the font:

Code:

xterm*font: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1

I then had two options as far as getting the colors back the way they were (that I could think of).

A)
Copy them from the /etc/X11/app-defaults/UXTerm file or XTerm-color file and put them in my .Xresources file.

or

B)
Edit my .xinitrc file once more and add this line:

Code:

xrdb -merge /etc/X11/app-defaults/XTerm-color

I opted for option B, but I think I may go to A. The reason is because I don't like some of the colors that the menu (control-left click) has... I'm fond of black and grey colors. The default is a orangish-brown color... kinda like wood or something.

Well... this has been my adventure. Man I'm pooped.

I got it just the way I want it tho - that's why I love Linux

checkmate3001 · 11-07-2007, 03:50 AM

jschiwal - Thank you for that link... I'm going to look at it tomorrow. I'm worn out...

Thank you guys for the tips!

checkmate3001 · 11-18-2007, 11:48 PM

I'm still not happy with the fact that I have to use ISO-8859-15 when I want to use UTF-8. I know it doesn't even matter because I only use the English alphabet anyways... but I'm stubborn.

I was wondering if anyone could answer these questions for me:
1) When using UTF-8 why won't man pages display correctly in the log-in shell (not through an X session) but will display correctly in an X-shell?
2) Why do I get the same results (man pages displaying correctly) if I use

Code:

LC_ALL=en_US.ISO-8859-15 man <somepage>

or if I use

Code:

LC_ALL=poop man <somepage>

I will get errors for both... but the man pages display correctly. This is driving me nuts. I can't understand why only the " ' " (apostrophe) won't display correctly. It is the stupidest thing in the world but it is bugging me to no end.

checkmate3001 · 11-19-2007, 12:50 AM

I have noticed one more thing that I find strange.

Any text displayed in man pages that is in bold WILL display hyphens "-" and apostrophes "'" correctly. Normal (un-bold) text will not.