Hi again! I'm using the newest version of Slackware, and I'm almost all set up, but I noticed that any files or folders with special characters, like umlauts, are simply not showing up at all (no Motorhead or Blue Oyster Cult). This isn't just in Thunar, but in terminal as well. I've changed my partition in fstab to nls=utf8, but then I get an error and that partition does not mount. I've also changed my locale to en_US.utf-8, but that does nothing either. I also have a bunch of songs in Japanese. Please help! I'd rather not go back to Ubuntu...

AFAIK, "nls=utf8" is generally only used with filesystems like fat and ntfs. Is your disk using one of these?

I think you need to explain your setup in a little more detail, as well as what you've tried and the effects you've had. AFAIK changing the locale is usually the way to do it. But it sounds like there's something else going on here. Perhaps you don't have the proper unicode fonts installed, for example.

Okay, I'll try to explain in more detail. (Thanks for the tip about nls--that explains why it didn't work, although I had read a post in another forum that suggested doing that.)

I'm actually not using official Slackware but the Slamd64 port, although I don't think that should make a difference. I did the full install, just without KDE, although I wouldn't bet my life on it...I don't use Windows, so I'm using ext3 for my file systems.

I'm confused because it's not as if I'm getting weird characters, like question marks for umlauts--the files are simply not there. I imagined that if I had the wrong font, I would just get errors and not have the files vanish.

Here's the output when I enter locale, if that helps.

The problem happens in both console and Thunar.

I'll try using a unicode font, like Terminus. Any other suggestions? I'm pretty much a n00b when it comes to this locale business, because in Ubuntu this was never a problem.

If there's any other information you need, please ask.

UPDATE: I tried Terminus, and it doesn't make a difference...

Unicode works properly...I tested it using the directions here http://www.vcn.bc.ca/~dugan/setting-up-slackware.html

I realize that my last post was misleading...

Unicode works, but my files still aren't showing up.

Because I didn't install KDE, I didn't install KDEI either. Does anyone think that installing KDEI would help? Any other suggestions?

Try adding your desired locale to /etc/profile.d/lang.sh

I set mine to be en_CA.utf8 (not UTF-8) and my unicoded filenames work fine.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I tried it and it didn't work. Still no files.

This probably is more a mount problem than a locale problem. What does your fstab entry look like?

Perhaps your file names are nor UTF encoded?

I'm also using ext3 and to have non-ASCII filenames, I modified lang.sh and nothing else to get things working -- never touched /etc/fstab for example.

Now I have - in KDE and console - all sorts of characters working (including accented Latin, Cyrillic and Arabic).

General Failure--here's my fstab.
Yes, I realize that I don't need 2 swap partitions...I'm on my way to changing that (which shouldn't be hard, because it's on the other hard drive).

As I state earlier in the post, I tried using "defaults,nls=utf8" for sda3, and that just made that partition refuse to mount, but I'm probably doing something wrong.

brixtoncalling--I modified lang.sh to en_US.utf8, but that didn't work. How would I be able to tell if my files are UTF encoded or not? They're not text files, but rather the names of directories and of mp3s (and their metadata). Ubuntu could see them without any problem.

Everyone, thanks for your help...I really really want to be able to use Slackware, and I think that this may be the last hurdle.

Can you also show us your fstab when booting Ubuntu, to check how the drives were mounted when the files were created?
And tell us the partition where the files are located (I guess on /dev/sda3 - /home, but better be sure...)

The abridged version of my recent adventures in Linux: I don't have Ubuntu on my computer at this second; I wanted Slackware to be on my new hard drive (/dev/sda), which is where Ubuntu was, so I reinstalled Slackware on that hard drive. But when I had Ubuntu on there, it could see all my files correctly (on /dev/sda3); I didn't reformat it. Before that, however, I totally wiped all my hard drives clean, because I wanted to do a fresh install of Jaunty Jackalope, the newest Ubuntu. I moved all my files to an external hard drive, which I don't believe is a linux partition, and then transferred them back onto my computer.

Yes, the files in question are located on /dev/sda3.

hmmm... This external hard drive, was it by any chance a Windows formatted drive, NTFS?
Do you still have that external drive with the files on it?

Yes, I still have the external hard drive, and there's a very good possibility that it's NTFS--it's from before I started even using Linux. How would I check?

Can you mount the external drive under Slackware?
Hint: If it doesn't mount automagically in Thunar etc., plug it in and check the end of /var/log/messages to see how it is recognized (like /dev/sdx etc...). Then mount with:
mount -t ntfs-3g -o locale=en_US.utf8 /dev/sdx /mnt/tmp
(you might have to experiment with the locale settings)

If yes, do all the files show up?
If yes, try to copy one file and check if it shows up with the right characters (accents, umlaut, etc...)

If it works with one file, try copying more...