How can I get rid of stupid UTF?

pingu · 04-05-2007, 03:59 PM

I need iso8859 for my national characters to work, both on local files and on websites I visit.
Now I'm trying to remove UTF-8 from my kubuntu 6.10 Edgy but I can't find out how.
I've followed several tips I found googling, tried manual config and debconf but with no luck.
Where the h*ck do you change locales in Debian??
In /etc/locale.gen I have this one line:

Code:

sv_SE.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15

In /etc/environment I have this one line:

Code:

LANG=sv_SE.ISO-8859-15

(Using debconf I of course have those "commented" lines ### BEGIN DEBCONF SECTION ... etc )
After reboot:

Code:

root@edgar:~# locale
LANG=sv_SE.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="sv_SE.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="sv_SE.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="sv_SE.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="sv_SE.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="sv_SE.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="sv_SE.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="sv_SE.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="sv_SE.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="sv_SE.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="sv_SE.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="sv_SE.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="sv_SE.UTF-8"

I tried searching the entire system for "LC_COLLATE" in my struggle to find out where the locales are set, no result.
The language-packs for swedish are installed,

Code:

# cat/usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED
............
 sv_SE.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15
..............

Googling I have (naturally) found lots and lots of questions regarding the same thing, but very few answers - and those few did not help me.
Is there no equivalent to Fedoras i18n?
Can someone please tell me how to get iso8859-15 instead of utf8?

sharkee · 04-06-2007, 08:04 PM

In your web browser preferences you should be able to select which font to use have a play with it
Regards
Sharke

slakmagik · 04-06-2007, 10:44 PM

I dunno how Debian does it (or, indeed, precisely how glibc does it for that matter), but in Slack it's just set by /etc/profile.d/lang.sh. However, some other distros have taken to screwing up LC_COLLATE, so I put

Code:

unset LC_ALL
export LANG=en_US
export LC_COLLATE=C

in my ~/.bashrc just to make sure. Unless you're trying to get this system-wide as administrator, that may work and be good enough for you - but LC_ALL must be unset (or set to what you want everything to be) or it ignores any other assignments.

Trying to be Debian-specific, your /etc/locale.gen looks like it'd be how you want it. Maybe you need to run locale-gen but, since /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED looks right, too, maybe that isn't it either. Like I say, I'd just try setting it up in my shell.

pingu · 04-07-2007, 09:36 AM

sharkee: Yes I know, I can also select encoding from menu - but it's very annoying having to change encoding every now and then. I want it set in my system once and for all.
digiot: Thanks, but it didn't work.
"locale-gen" generates a bunch of .UTF-8 locales
Adding those lines to .bashrc did nothing.

This is crazy, what I have now is:
In a terminal (xterm or tty1): UTF-8
In X: Konqueror, menu, some apps: iso8859 (these apps are in Swedish)
In some other X-apps: UTF-8 (these apps are in English!)
To make it clearer, here's a filename displayed in konqueror:

Code:

file:///home/pingu/ssk/matchprogram/Annonsör_lista.gnumeric

The same file displayed in gnumeric/open file:

Code:

Annons?r_lista.gnumeric

sharkee · 04-08-2007, 05:54 PM

This may be of help http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=6446
Regards
Sharke

sharkee · 04-08-2007, 05:54 PM

This may be of help http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=6446
Regards
Sharke

syg00 · 04-08-2007, 06:22 PM

Or this.
Even has a section titled "For Anti-UTF-8 people" - seems just what you're looking for ...

pingu · 04-10-2007, 05:41 PM

Thanks, but no.
I followed the anti-UTF8 both for terminal & gdm, after reboot I had all UTF-8. (I must REBOOT for changes to take effect??)
The tips on the french side I had already tried earlier.
Any other ideas?

(PS: You see my little tag - "no favourite, none good enough"? This problem is a good example. In Fedoralikes it's so easy - change one line in /etc/sysconfig/i18n and then source it - voila! In Ubuntu it's considered an EXPERT task to be able to use national characters? If you ever manage... But then, how do I get my software in Fedora...)

nx5000 · 04-11-2007, 05:17 AM

Anti-UTF8 .. that's the most stupid thing I've ever seen.

UTF8 will be the next standard. There will be nothing else anymore. Anti-UTF8 people is like saying fuck off to the whole asia or arab countries..
If you want to not use UTF8, use windows or a linux distro that is more that 2 years old.
Because new distro are now switching to UTF8. Switching means a lot is still to do to convert everyting to UTF8.
The new Debian Etch is fully UTF8 now and nobody is really angry about that.

I can only speak for debian. On my machine I have

Quote:

Originally Posted by /etc/default/locale

LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8

You can search yourself:

Code:

cd /etc
grep -r --mmap LANG *

I also cannot speak for sweedish. Sweedish is probably still less supported than french or german or whatever. Because fewer sweedish people have contributed to help UTF8 transition.
If you see a program that doesn't work with UTF8, OPEN A BUG REPORT or make the conversion yourself. Personnally I had problematic programs, I removed them. Now they are all corrected.

When I have a buggy program that still hasn't made the switch to UTF8, I use:

Code:

LANG= /usr/bin/program

An example is xscreensaver. Its maintainer seems to not care about non-english speakers.

For websites not in UTF8, I email the webmaster, post a message on his blog with converting everything to UTF8 (with iconv it takes about 2 seconds) or I just don't visit the webpage because it doesn't follow standards.

pingu · 04-11-2007, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nx5000

Anti-UTF8 .. that's the most stupid thing I've ever seen.
UTF8 will be the next standard. There will be nothing else anymore. Anti-UTF8 people is like saying fuck off to the whole asia or arab countries..
If you want to not use UTF8, use windows or a linux distro that is more that 2 years old.
.........
Because new distro are now switching to UTF8. Switching means a lot is still to do to convert everyting to UTF8.

What you're actually saying is that asia and arab countries hasn't been able to use their own languages before UTF-8??
You're also saying that for the last two years I should really not have been able to use Swedish characters - and "Sweedish is probably still less supported.." meaning I should wait -another year? or how long? - before I can start using Swedish on my computers? (If I'm not a programmer, that is.)
Excuse me, but that's about the silliest thing I've ever heard!
I have used Swedish on Linux from 2001, without any problem. The problem came with stupid UTF-8 - it's a splendid example of trying to fix what isn't broken!
Instead of using an old distro I can use for example Fedora Core 6 or Mandriva 2007, these distros allow me to choose, so there I can use Swedish.

And removing programs - well, I really can't do without text terminals, gnumeric and OpenOffice, to just name a few.

Quote:

Its maintainer seems to not care about non-english speakers.

It's UTF-8 that doesn't care about non-english speakers!

Wellwell, I started this thread to get a solution to a problem, not for a general discussion pro's-& cons of UTF-8.

Unfortunately I haven't found a working solution, noone else seems to know either.
That means no Debian for me - not being able to use Swedish is a major issue for me. I simply has to stick to Mandriva, it also has downsides but not any major issues. It's a bit buggy, I would like something that runs smoother, a little bit more reliable but well, you can't get everything!