doc/en/guide-localization.xml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/guide-localization.xml,v 1.52 2009/02/15 07:16:17 rane Exp $ -->
<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">

<guide link="/doc/en/guide-localization.xml">
<title>Gentoo Linux Localization Guide</title>
<author title="Author">
  Alexander Holler
</author>
<author title="Translator/Editor">
  <mail link="slucy@uchicago.edu">Steven Lucy</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="bennyc@gentoo.org">Benny Chuang</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="pylon@gentoo.org">Lars Weiler</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="dertobi123@gentoo.org">Tobias Scherbaum</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="flammie@gentoo.org">Flammie Pirinen</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="nightmorph"/>
</author>

<abstract>
This guide should help users localize their Gentoo Linux distribution to any
European locale. It uses Germany as a case-study, since it is translated from
the German doc. Includes configuration for use of the euro currency symbol.
</abstract>

<version>1.40</version>
<date>2009-02-25</date>

<chapter>
<title>Time zone</title>
<section>
<body>

<p>
In order to keep time properly, you need to select your timezone so that your
system knows where it is located. Look for your timezone in
<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo</path>. You then set your timezone in
<path>/etc/conf.d/clock</path>. Please avoid the
<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/GMT*</path> timezones as their names do not
indicate the expected zones. For instance, <path>GMT-8</path> is in fact GMT+8.
</p>

<pre caption="Setting the timezone information">
# <i>ls /usr/share/zoneinfo</i>
<comment>(Suppose you want to use Brussels)</comment>
<comment>(First copy the proper zone to localtime)</comment>
# <i>cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Brussels /etc/localtime</i>
<comment>(Now specify your timezone)</comment>
# <i>nano -w /etc/conf.d/clock</i>
TIMEZONE="Europe/Brussels"

# <i>date</i>
Wed Mar  8 00:46:05 CET 2006
</pre>

<note>
Make sure that the timezone indicator (in this case "CET")
is correct for your area.
</note>

<note>
You can set the value of <c>TZ</c> to be everything after the
<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo</path> in your shell rc file
(<path>.bash_profile</path> for bash) for a user-level setting.  In this case
<c>TZ="Europe/Berlin"</c>.
</note>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>Hardware Clock</title>
<section>
<body>

<p>
In most Gentoo Linux installations, your hardware clock is set to
UTC (or GMT, Greenwich Mean Time) and then your timezone is
taken into account to determine the actual, local time.  If,
for some reason, you need your hardware clock not to be in UTC,
you will need to edit <path>/etc/conf.d/clock</path> and change the
value of <c>CLOCK</c> from <c>UTC</c> to <c>local</c>.
</p>

<pre caption="local vs. GMT clock">
<comment>(recommended:)</comment>
CLOCK="UTC"
<comment>(or:)</comment>
CLOCK="local"
</pre>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>Locale system</title>
<section>
<title>What are locales?</title>
<body>

<p>
A Locale is a set of information that most programs use for determining country
and language specific settings. The locales and their data are part of the
system library and can be found at <path>/usr/share/locale</path> on most
systems. A locale name is generally named <c>ab_CD</c> where <c>ab</c> is your
two (or three) letter language code (as specified in ISO-639) and <c>CD</c> is
your two letter country code (as specified in ISO-3166). Variants are often
appended to locale names, e.g. <c>en_GB.utf8</c> or <c>de_DE@euro</c>. Please
explore <uri link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locale">Wikipedia</uri> to read
more about locales and related articles.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section id="variables">
<title>Environment variables for locales</title>
<body>

<p>
Locale settings are stored in environment variables. These are typically
set in the <path>/etc/env.d/02locale</path> (for system-wide
settings) and <path>~/.bashrc</path> (for user-specific settings) file.
The variables controlling different aspects of locale settings
are given in the table below. All of them
take one name of a locale in <c>ab_CD</c> format given above.
</p>

<table>
<tr>
  <th>Variable name</th>
  <th>Explanation</th>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>LANG</ti>
  <ti>
    Defines all locale settings at once, while allowing further individual
    customization via the LC_* settings below.
  </ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>LC_COLLATE</ti>
  <ti>
    Define alphabetical ordering of strings. This affects e.g. output of sorted
    directory listing.
  </ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>LC_CTYPE</ti>
  <ti>
    Define the character handling properties for the system. This determines 
    which characters are seen as part of alphabet, numeric and so on. This also
    determines the character set used, if applicable.
  </ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>LC_MESSAGES</ti>
  <ti>
    Programs' localizations for applications that use message based localization
    scheme (majority of Gnu programs, see next chapters for closer information
    which do, and how to get the programs, that don't, to work).
  </ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>LC_MONETARY</ti>
  <ti>Defines currency units and formatting of currency type numeric values.</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>LC_NUMERIC</ti>
  <ti>
    Defines formatting of numeric values which aren't monetary. Affects things
    such as thousand separator and decimal separator.
  </ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>LC_TIME</ti>
  <ti>Defines formatting of dates and times.</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>LC_PAPER</ti>
  <ti>Defines default paper size.</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>LC_ALL</ti>
  <ti>
    A special variable for overriding all other settings.
  </ti>
</tr>
</table>

<note>
Some programs are written in such a way that they expect traditional English
ordering of the alphabet, while some locales, most notably the Estonian one, use
a different ordering. Therefore it's recommended to explicitly set LC_COLLATE to C
when dealing with system-wide settings.
</note>

<warn>
Using LC_ALL is strongly discouraged as it can't be overriden later on. Please
use it only when testing and never set it in a startup file.
</warn>

<p>
Most typically users only set the LANG variable on the global basis:
</p>

<pre caption="Setting the default system locale in /etc/env.d/02locale">
LANG="de_DE.utf8@euro"
LC_COLLATE="C"
</pre>

<note>
Append <c>@euro</c> to your locale if you want to use the Euro
currency symbol (€)
</note>

<p>
It's also possible, and pretty common especially in a more traditional UNIX
environment, to leave the global settings unchanged, i.e. in the "<c>C</c>"
locale. Users can still specify their preferred locale in their own shell RC
file:
</p>

<pre caption="Setting the user locale in ~/.bashrc">
export LANG="de_DE.utf8@euro"
export LC_COLLATE="C"
</pre>

<p>
Another way of configuring system is to leave it in the default C locale, but
enable UTF-8 character representation at the same time. This option is achieved
using the following settings in <path>/etc/env.d/02locale</path>:
</p>

<pre caption="Using traditional C locale while specifying UTF-8">
LC_CTYPE=de_DE.utf8
</pre>

<p>
Using the above snippet, users will be able to see localized file names
properly, while not being forced to your preferred language.
</p>

<p>
For message based localization to work in programs that support it, you will
probably need to have programs compiled with the <c>nls</c> (Native language
support) USE flag set. Most of the programs using nls also need the gettext
library to extract and use localized messages. Of course, Portage will
automatically install it when needed.
</p>

<p>
Once you have set the right locale, be sure to update your environment
variables to make your system aware of the change:
</p>

<pre caption="Update the environment">
<comment>(For system-wide default locale:)</comment>
# <i>env-update &amp;&amp; source /etc/profile</i>

<comment>(For user-specific locale:)</comment>
$ <i>source ~/.bashrc</i>
</pre>

<p>
After this, you will need to kill your X server by pressing
<c>Ctrl-Alt-Backspace</c>, log out, then log in as user.
</p>

<p>
Now, verify that the changes have taken effect:
</p>

<pre caption="Verify env changes">
$ <i>locale</i>
</pre>

<p>
There is also additional localisation variable called LINGUAS, which affects
to localisation files that get installed in gettext-based programs, and decides
used localisation for some specific software packages, such as 
<c>kde-base/kde-i18n</c> and <c>app-office/openoffice</c>. The variable
takes in <e>space</e>-separated list of language codes, and suggested
place to set it is <path>/etc/make.conf</path>:
</p>

<pre caption="Setting LINGUAS in make.conf">
# <i>nano -w /etc/make.conf</i>
<comment>(Add in the LINGUAS variable. For instance, 
for German, Finnish and English:)</comment>
LINGUAS="de fi en"
</pre>


</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Generating Specific Locales</title>
<body>

<p>
If you use a locale that isn't available by default, you should use
<c>localedef</c> to generate your locale. For instance:
</p>

<pre caption="Generating a locale using localedef">
# <i>localedef -c -i en_US -f ISO-8859-15 en_US.ISO-8859-15</i>
</pre>

<p>
After having generated the locale, you can export the LANG variable as you see
fit.
</p>

<pre caption="Exporting the LANG variable">
# <i>export LANG="en_US.ISO-8859-15"</i>
</pre>

<p>
Be sure to update the environment after the change:
</p>

<pre caption="Update the environment">
# <i>env-update &amp;&amp; source /etc/profile</i>
</pre>

<p>
After this, you will need to kill your X server by pressing
<c>Ctrl-Alt-Backspace</c>, log out, then log in as user.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Generating locales for glibc</title>
<body>

<p>
You will probably only use one or maybe two locales on your system. You can
specify locales you will need in <path>/etc/locale.gen</path>.
</p>

<pre caption="Adding locales to /etc/locale.gen">
en_GB ISO-8859-1
en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8
de_DE ISO-8859-1
de_DE@euro ISO-8859-15
</pre>

<p>
The next step is to run <c>locale-gen</c>. It will generate all the locales you
have specified in the <path>/etc/locale.gen</path> file.
</p>

<note>
<c>locale-gen</c> is available in <c>glibc-2.3.6-r4</c> and newer. If you have
an older version of glibc, you should update it now.
</note>

<p>
You can verify that your selected locales are available by running <c>locale
-a</c>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>Keyboard layout for the console</title>
<section>
<body>

<p>
The keyboard layout used by the console is set in
<path>/etc/conf.d/keymaps</path> by the <c>KEYMAP</c> variable.
Valid values can be found in
<path>/usr/share/keymaps/<c>{arch}</c>/</path>.
<path>i386</path> has further subdivisions into layout
(<path>qwerty/</path>, <path>azerty/</path>, etc.).  Some
languages have multiple options, so you may wish to experiment
to decide which one fits your needs best.
</p>

<pre caption="Setting the console keymap">
KEYMAP="de"
KEYMAP="de-latin1"
KEYMAP="de-latin1-nodeadkeys"
</pre>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>Keyboard layout for the X server</title>
<section>
<body>

<p>
The keyboard layout to be used by the X server is specified
in <path>/etc/X11/xorg.conf</path> by the <c>XkbLayout</c>
option.
</p>

<pre caption="Setting the X keymap">
 Section "InputDevice"
     Identifier  "Keyboard1"
     ...
     Option "XkbLayout"    "de"
     #Option "XkbModel"     "pc105"    <comment>## this is for international keyboards.</comment>
     # Option "XkbVariant"  "nodeadkeys" <comment>## this would be used for xterm input</comment>
     ...
</pre>

<p>
If you have an international keyboard layout, you should set the option
<c>XkbModel</c> to <c>pc102</c> or <c>pc105</c>, as this will allow mapping of the
additional keys specific to your keyboard.
</p>

<p>
Deadkeys allow you to press keys that will not show immediately but will be
combined with another letter to produce a single character such as é,è,á,à,
etc. Setting <c>XkbVariant</c> to <c>nodeadkeys</c> allows input these special
characters into X terminals.
</p>

<p>
If you would like to switch between more than one keyboard layout (for example
English and Russian), all you have to do is add a few lines to
<path>xorg.conf</path> that specify the desired layouts and the shortcut
command.
</p>

<pre caption="Switching between two keyboard layouts">
 Section "InputDevice"
     Identifier  "Keyboard1"
     ...
     Option "XkbLayout"    "us,ru"
     Option "XkbOptions"   "grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll"
</pre>

<p>
Here, <c>XkbOptions</c> allows you to toggle between keyboard layouts by simply
pressing <c>Alt-Shift</c>. This will also toggle the Scroll Lock light on or
off, thanks to the <c>grp_led:scroll</c> option. This is a handy visual
indicator of which keyboard layout you are using at the moment.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>KDE</title>
<section>
<body>

<p>
For KDE you have to install the <c>kde-base/kde-i18n</c> package. Kde-i18n
respects <uri link="#variables">LINGUAS variable</uri> described earlier.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>The Euro Symbol for the Console</title>
<section>
<body>

<p>
In order to get your console to display the Euro symbol, you
will need to set <c>CONSOLEFONT</c> in
<path>/etc/conf.d/consolefont</path> to a file found in
<path>/usr/share/consolefonts/</path> (without the
<c>.psfu.gz</c>).  <c>lat9w-16</c> has the Euro symbol.
</p>

<pre caption="Setting the console font">
CONSOLEFONT="lat9w-16"
</pre>

<p>
You should verify that <c>CONSOLEFONT</c> is in the boot runlevel:
</p>

<pre caption="Verify the proper runlevel">
# <i>rc-update -v show | grep -i consolefont</i>
</pre>

<p>
If no runlevel is displayed for <c>CONSOLEFONT</c>, then add it to the proper level:
</p>

<pre caption="Add consolefont to boot">
# <i>rc-update add consolefont boot</i>
</pre>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>The Euro Symbol in X</title>
<section>
<title>Most Applications</title>
<body>

<p>
Getting the Euro symbol to work properly in X is a little bit tougher.  The
first thing you should do is change the <c>fixed</c> and <c>variable</c>
definitions in <path>/usr/share/fonts/misc/fonts.alias</path> to end in
<c>iso8859-15</c> instead of <c>iso8859-1</c>.
</p>

<pre caption="Setting default X fonts">
fixed        -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15
variable     -*-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-15
</pre>

<p>
Some applications use their own font, and you will have to tell them separately
to use a font with the Euro symbol.  You can do this at a user-specific level in
<path>.Xdefaults</path> (you can copy this file to <path>/etc/skel/</path> for
use by new users), or at a global level for any application with a resource file
in <path>/usr/share/X11/app-defaults/</path> (like xterm).  In these files you
generally have to change an existing line, rather than adding a new one.  To
change our xterm font, for instance:
</p>

<pre caption="Setting fonts for xterm">
<comment>(in your home directory)</comment>
$ <i>echo 'XTerm*font: fixed' >> .Xresources </i>
$ <i>xrdb -merge .Xresources</i>
</pre>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>The Euro symbol in (X)Emacs</title>
<body>

<p>
To use the Euro symbol in (X)Emacs, add the following to
<path>.Xdefaults</path>:
</p>

<pre caption="setting the font for emacs">
Emacs.default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-15
</pre>

<p>
For XEmacs (not plain Emacs), you have to do a little
more.  In <path>/home/user/.xemacs/init.el</path>, add:
</p>

<pre caption="setting the font for xemacs">
(define-key global-map '(EuroSign) '[€])
</pre>

<note>
The symbol in the []s is the Euro symbol.
</note>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>OpenOffice.Org</title>
<body>

<p>
The current stable <c>app-office/openoffice</c> and
<c>app-office/openoffice-bin</c> ebuilds support the <uri
link="#variables">LINGUAS variable</uri> for selecting installed GUI language
packs. To see the status of GUI translation, hyphenation, spell checking and
other localisations on your language, please refer to <uri
link="http://l10n.openoffice.org/languages.html">OpenOffice.Org localisation
web site</uri>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

</guide>
1	swift	1.6	<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
2	jkt	1.53	<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/guide-localization.xml,v 1.52 2009/02/15 07:16:17 rane Exp $ -->
3	swift	1.6	<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
4
5			<guide link="/doc/en/guide-localization.xml">
6	antifa	1.4	<title>Gentoo Linux Localization Guide</title>
7	dertobi123	1.12	<author title="Author">
8	pylon	1.16	Alexander Holler
9	drobbins	1.1	</author>
10	dertobi123	1.12	<author title="Translator/Editor">
11			<mail link="slucy@uchicago.edu">Steven Lucy</mail>
12	antifa	1.4	</author>
13	bennyc	1.8	<author title="Editor">
14			<mail link="bennyc@gentoo.org">Benny Chuang</mail>
15			</author>
16	dertobi123	1.11	<author title="Editor">
17			<mail link="pylon@gentoo.org">Lars Weiler</mail>
18			</author>
19	dertobi123	1.15	<author title="Editor">
20			<mail link="dertobi123@gentoo.org">Tobias Scherbaum</mail>
21			</author>
22	swift	1.18	<author title="Editor">
23			<mail link="flammie@gentoo.org">Flammie Pirinen</mail>
24			</author>
25	nightmorph	1.51	<author title="Editor">
26			<mail link="nightmorph"/>
27			</author>
28	dertobi123	1.12
29	antifa	1.4	<abstract>
30			This guide should help users localize their Gentoo Linux distribution to any
31	dertobi123	1.12	European locale. It uses Germany as a case-study, since it is translated from
32	swift	1.23	the German doc. Includes configuration for use of the euro currency symbol.
33	antifa	1.4	</abstract>
34	drobbins	1.1
35	jkt	1.53	<version>1.40</version>
36			<date>2009-02-25</date>
37	dertobi123	1.12
38	drobbins	1.1	<chapter>
39	swift	1.23	<title>Time zone</title>
40	drobbins	1.1	<section>
41	dertobi123	1.12	<body>
42
43			<p>
44	nightmorph	1.46	In order to keep time properly, you need to select your timezone so that your
45			system knows where it is located. Look for your timezone in
46			<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo</path>. You then set your timezone in
47			<path>/etc/conf.d/clock</path>. Please avoid the
48	neysx	1.31	<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/GMT*</path> timezones as their names do not
49			indicate the expected zones. For instance, <path>GMT-8</path> is in fact GMT+8.
50	dertobi123	1.12	</p>
51
52	nightmorph	1.46	<pre caption="Setting the timezone information">
53			# <i>ls /usr/share/zoneinfo</i>
54			<comment>(Suppose you want to use Brussels)</comment>
55	rane	1.52	<comment>(First copy the proper zone to localtime)</comment>
56	nightmorph	1.51	# <i>cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Brussels /etc/localtime</i>
57			<comment>(Now specify your timezone)</comment>
58	nightmorph	1.46	# <i>nano -w /etc/conf.d/clock</i>
59			TIMEZONE="Europe/Brussels"
60
61	antifa	1.4	# <i>date</i>
62	nightmorph	1.46	Wed Mar 8 00:46:05 CET 2006
63	drobbins	1.1	</pre>
64	dertobi123	1.12
65			<note>
66	flammie	1.41	Make sure that the timezone indicator (in this case "CET")
67	dertobi123	1.12	is correct for your area.
68			</note>
69
70			<note>
71	cam	1.13	You can set the value of <c>TZ</c> to be everything after the
72	aaby	1.10	<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo</path> in your shell rc file
73	antifa	1.4	(<path>.bash_profile</path> for bash) for a user-level setting. In this case
74	cam	1.13	<c>TZ="Europe/Berlin"</c>.
75	dertobi123	1.12	</note>
76
77			</body>
78	drobbins	1.1	</section>
79			</chapter>
80
81			<chapter>
82	swift	1.26	<title>Hardware Clock</title>
83	drobbins	1.1	<section>
84	dertobi123	1.12	<body>
85
86			<p>
87	swift	1.26	In most Gentoo Linux installations, your hardware clock is set to
88	swift	1.23	UTC (or GMT, Greenwich Mean Time) and then your timezone is
89	dertobi123	1.12	taken into account to determine the actual, local time. If,
90	swift	1.26	for some reason, you need your hardware clock not to be in UTC,
91	fox2mike	1.28	you will need to edit <path>/etc/conf.d/clock</path> and change the
92	swift	1.26	value of <c>CLOCK</c> from <c>UTC</c> to <c>local</c>.
93	dertobi123	1.12	</p>
94	antifa	1.4
95			<pre caption="local vs. GMT clock">
96	neysx	1.20	<comment>(recommended:)</comment>
97	dertobi123	1.12	CLOCK="UTC"
98	neysx	1.20	<comment>(or:)</comment>
99	dertobi123	1.12	CLOCK="local"
100	drobbins	1.1	</pre>
101	dertobi123	1.12
102			</body>
103	drobbins	1.1	</section>
104			</chapter>
105
106			<chapter>
107	swift	1.18	<title>Locale system</title>
108	drobbins	1.1	<section>
109	swift	1.18	<title>What are locales?</title>
110	dertobi123	1.12	<body>
111
112			<p>
113	neysx	1.48	A Locale is a set of information that most programs use for determining country
114			and language specific settings. The locales and their data are part of the
115			system library and can be found at <path>/usr/share/locale</path> on most
116			systems. A locale name is generally named <c>ab_CD</c> where <c>ab</c> is your
117			two (or three) letter language code (as specified in ISO-639) and <c>CD</c> is
118			your two letter country code (as specified in ISO-3166). Variants are often
119			appended to locale names, e.g. <c>en_GB.utf8</c> or <c>de_DE@euro</c>. Please
120			explore <uri link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locale">Wikipedia</uri> to read
121			more about locales and related articles.
122	swift	1.18	</p>
123
124			</body>
125			</section>
126	flammie	1.32	<section id="variables">
127	swift	1.18	<title>Environment variables for locales</title>
128			<body>
129
130			<p>
131			Locale settings are stored in environment variables. These are typically
132			set in the <path>/etc/env.d/02locale</path> (for system-wide
133			settings) and <path>~/.bashrc</path> (for user-specific settings) file.
134			The variables controlling different aspects of locale settings
135	jkt	1.50	are given in the table below. All of them
136	swift	1.18	take one name of a locale in <c>ab_CD</c> format given above.
137			</p>
138
139			<table>
140			<tr>
141			<th>Variable name</th>
142			<th>Explanation</th>
143			</tr>
144			<tr>
145	jkt	1.49	<ti>LANG</ti>
146	swift	1.18	<ti>
147	jkt	1.49	Defines all locale settings at once, while allowing further individual
148			customization via the LC_* settings below.
149	swift	1.18	</ti>
150			</tr>
151			<tr>
152			<ti>LC_COLLATE</ti>
153			<ti>
154	flammie	1.42	Define alphabetical ordering of strings. This affects e.g. output of sorted
155	swift	1.23	directory listing.
156	swift	1.18	</ti>
157			</tr>
158			<tr>
159			<ti>LC_CTYPE</ti>
160			<ti>
161			Define the character handling properties for the system. This determines
162			which characters are seen as part of alphabet, numeric and so on. This also
163			determines the character set used, if applicable.
164			</ti>
165			</tr>
166			<tr>
167			<ti>LC_MESSAGES</ti>
168			<ti>
169			Programs' localizations for applications that use message based localization
170			scheme (majority of Gnu programs, see next chapters for closer information
171			which do, and how to get the programs, that don't, to work).
172			</ti>
173			</tr>
174			<tr>
175			<ti>LC_MONETARY</ti>
176			<ti>Defines currency units and formatting of currency type numeric values.</ti>
177			</tr>
178			<tr>
179			<ti>LC_NUMERIC</ti>
180			<ti>
181			Defines formatting of numeric values which aren't monetary. Affects things
182			such as thousand separator and decimal separator.
183			</ti>
184			</tr>
185			<tr>
186			<ti>LC_TIME</ti>
187			<ti>Defines formatting of dates and times.</ti>
188			</tr>
189			<tr>
190			<ti>LC_PAPER</ti>
191			<ti>Defines default paper size.</ti>
192			</tr>
193			<tr>
194	jkt	1.49	<ti>LC_ALL</ti>
195	swift	1.18	<ti>
196	jkt	1.49	A special variable for overriding all other settings.
197	swift	1.18	</ti>
198			</tr>
199			</table>
200
201	swift	1.25	<note>
202	jkt	1.49	Some programs are written in such a way that they expect traditional English
203			ordering of the alphabet, while some locales, most notably the Estonian one, use
204			a different ordering. Therefore it's recommended to explicitly set LC_COLLATE to C
205			when dealing with system-wide settings.
206	swift	1.25	</note>
207
208	jkt	1.49	<warn>
209	jkt	1.53	Using LC_ALL is strongly discouraged as it can't be overriden later on. Please
210			use it only when testing and never set it in a startup file.
211	jkt	1.49	</warn>
212
213	swift	1.18	<p>
214	jkt	1.49	Most typically users only set the LANG variable on the global basis:
215	dertobi123	1.12	</p>
216
217	jkt	1.49	<pre caption="Setting the default system locale in /etc/env.d/02locale">
218			LANG="de_DE.utf8@euro"
219			LC_COLLATE="C"
220	drobbins	1.1	</pre>
221	dertobi123	1.12
222			<note>
223	swift	1.18	Append <c>@euro</c> to your locale if you want to use the Euro
224	neysx	1.39	currency symbol (€)
225	dertobi123	1.12	</note>
226
227	swift	1.18	<p>
228	jkt	1.49	It's also possible, and pretty common especially in a more traditional UNIX
229			environment, to leave the global settings unchanged, i.e. in the "<c>C</c>"
230			locale. Users can still specify their preferred locale in their own shell RC
231			file:
232	neysx	1.39	</p>
233
234	jkt	1.49	<pre caption="Setting the user locale in ~/.bashrc">
235			export LANG="de_DE.utf8@euro"
236			export LC_COLLATE="C"
237			</pre>
238
239			<p>
240			Another way of configuring system is to leave it in the default C locale, but
241			enable UTF-8 character representation at the same time. This option is achieved
242			using the following settings in <path>/etc/env.d/02locale</path>:
243			</p>
244
245			<pre caption="Using traditional C locale while specifying UTF-8">
246			LC_CTYPE=de_DE.utf8
247	neysx	1.39	</pre>
248
249			<p>
250	jkt	1.49	Using the above snippet, users will be able to see localized file names
251			properly, while not being forced to your preferred language.
252	neysx	1.39	</p>
253
254			<p>
255	swift	1.18	For message based localization to work in programs that support it, you will
256			probably need to have programs compiled with the <c>nls</c> (Native language
257			support) USE flag set. Most of the programs using nls also need the gettext
258	neysx	1.39	library to extract and use localized messages. Of course, Portage will
259	swift	1.18	automatically install it when needed.
260			</p>
261
262	flammie	1.32	<p>
263	rane	1.35	Once you have set the right locale, be sure to update your environment
264			variables to make your system aware of the change:
265			</p>
266
267			<pre caption="Update the environment">
268	neysx	1.39	<comment>(For system-wide default locale:)</comment>
269	rane	1.35	# <i>env-update && source /etc/profile</i>
270	neysx	1.39
271	jkt	1.40	<comment>(For user-specific locale:)</comment>
272	neysx	1.39	$ <i>source ~/.bashrc</i>
273	rane	1.35	</pre>
274
275			<p>
276			After this, you will need to kill your X server by pressing
277			<c>Ctrl-Alt-Backspace</c>, log out, then log in as user.
278			</p>
279
280			<p>
281			Now, verify that the changes have taken effect:
282			</p>
283
284			<pre caption="Verify env changes">
285	jkt	1.49	$ <i>locale</i>
286	rane	1.35	</pre>
287
288			<p>
289	flammie	1.32	There is also additional localisation variable called LINGUAS, which affects
290			to localisation files that get installed in gettext-based programs, and decides
291			used localisation for some specific software packages, such as
292			<c>kde-base/kde-i18n</c> and <c>app-office/openoffice</c>. The variable
293			takes in <e>space</e>-separated list of language codes, and suggested
294			place to set it is <path>/etc/make.conf</path>:
295			</p>
296
297	neysx	1.39	<pre caption="Setting LINGUAS in make.conf">
298	flammie	1.32	# <i>nano -w /etc/make.conf</i>
299			<comment>(Add in the LINGUAS variable. For instance,
300			for German, Finnish and English:)</comment>
301			LINGUAS="de fi en"
302			</pre>
303
304
305	dertobi123	1.12	</body>
306	drobbins	1.1	</section>
307	swift	1.14	<section>
308			<title>Generating Specific Locales</title>
309			<body>
310
311			<p>
312			If you use a locale that isn't available by default, you should use
313			<c>localedef</c> to generate your locale. For instance:
314			</p>
315
316			<pre caption="Generating a locale using localedef">
317			# <i>localedef -c -i en_US -f ISO-8859-15 en_US.ISO-8859-15</i>
318			</pre>
319
320			<p>
321			After having generated the locale, you can export the LANG variable as you see
322			fit.
323			</p>
324
325			<pre caption="Exporting the LANG variable">
326			# <i>export LANG="en_US.ISO-8859-15"</i>
327			</pre>
328
329	rane	1.35	<p>
330			Be sure to update the environment after the change:
331			</p>
332
333			<pre caption="Update the environment">
334			# <i>env-update && source /etc/profile</i>
335			</pre>
336
337			<p>
338			After this, you will need to kill your X server by pressing
339			<c>Ctrl-Alt-Backspace</c>, log out, then log in as user.
340			</p>
341
342	swift	1.14	</body>
343			</section>
344	dertobi123	1.15	<section>
345	rane	1.43	<title>Generating locales for glibc</title>
346	dertobi123	1.15	<body>
347
348			<p>
349	rane	1.43	You will probably only use one or maybe two locales on your system. You can
350			specify locales you will need in <path>/etc/locale.gen</path>.
351	dertobi123	1.15	</p>
352
353	rane	1.43	<pre caption="Adding locales to /etc/locale.gen">
354			en_GB ISO-8859-1
355			en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8
356			de_DE ISO-8859-1
357			de_DE@euro ISO-8859-15
358	dertobi123	1.15	</pre>
359
360			<p>
361	rane	1.43	The next step is to run <c>locale-gen</c>. It will generate all the locales you
362			have specified in the <path>/etc/locale.gen</path> file.
363	dertobi123	1.15	</p>
364
365	rane	1.43	<note>
366			<c>locale-gen</c> is available in <c>glibc-2.3.6-r4</c> and newer. If you have
367			an older version of glibc, you should update it now.
368			</note>
369	dertobi123	1.15
370	nightmorph	1.44	<p>
371			You can verify that your selected locales are available by running <c>locale
372			-a</c>.
373			</p>
374
375	dertobi123	1.15	</body>
376			</section>
377	drobbins	1.1	</chapter>
378
379			<chapter>
380	antifa	1.4	<title>Keyboard layout for the console</title>
381	drobbins	1.1	<section>
382	dertobi123	1.12	<body>
383
384			<p>
385			The keyboard layout used by the console is set in
386	fox2mike	1.27	<path>/etc/conf.d/keymaps</path> by the <c>KEYMAP</c> variable.
387	dertobi123	1.12	Valid values can be found in
388	cam	1.13	<path>/usr/share/keymaps/<c>{arch}</c>/</path>.
389	dertobi123	1.12	<path>i386</path> has further subdivisions into layout
390			(<path>qwerty/</path>, <path>azerty/</path>, etc.). Some
391			languages have multiple options, so you may wish to experiment
392			to decide which one fits your needs best.
393			</p>
394
395	neysx	1.39	<pre caption="Setting the console keymap">
396	dertobi123	1.12	KEYMAP="de"
397			KEYMAP="de-latin1"
398			KEYMAP="de-latin1-nodeadkeys"
399	drobbins	1.1	</pre>
400	dertobi123	1.12
401			</body>
402	drobbins	1.1	</section>
403			</chapter>
404
405			<chapter>
406	antifa	1.4	<title>Keyboard layout for the X server</title>
407	drobbins	1.1	<section>
408	dertobi123	1.12	<body>
409
410			<p>
411			The keyboard layout to be used by the X server is specified
412	alin	1.21	in <path>/etc/X11/xorg.conf</path> by the <c>XkbLayout</c>
413	dertobi123	1.12	option.
414			</p>
415
416	neysx	1.39	<pre caption="Setting the X keymap">
417	drobbins	1.1	Section "InputDevice"
418			Identifier "Keyboard1"
419			...
420			Option "XkbLayout" "de"
421	rane	1.35	#Option "XkbModel" "pc105" <comment>## this is for international keyboards.</comment>
422			# Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys" <comment>## this would be used for xterm input</comment>
423			...
424			</pre>
425
426			<p>
427			If you have an international keyboard layout, you should set the option
428			<c>XkbModel</c> to <c>pc102</c> or <c>pc105</c>, as this will allow mapping of the
429			additional keys specific to your keyboard.
430			</p>
431
432			<p>
433			Deadkeys allow you to press keys that will not show immediately but will be
434			combined with another letter to produce a single character such as é,è,á,à,
435			etc. Setting <c>XkbVariant</c> to <c>nodeadkeys</c> allows input these special
436			characters into X terminals.
437			</p>
438
439			<p>
440			If you would like to switch between more than one keyboard layout (for example
441			English and Russian), all you have to do is add a few lines to
442			<path>xorg.conf</path> that specify the desired layouts and the shortcut
443			command.
444			</p>
445
446			<pre caption="Switching between two keyboard layouts">
447			Section "InputDevice"
448			Identifier "Keyboard1"
449	drobbins	1.1	...
450	rane	1.35	Option "XkbLayout" "us,ru"
451			Option "XkbOptions" "grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll"
452	drobbins	1.1	</pre>
453	dertobi123	1.12
454	rane	1.35	<p>
455			Here, <c>XkbOptions</c> allows you to toggle between keyboard layouts by simply
456			pressing <c>Alt-Shift</c>. This will also toggle the Scroll Lock light on or
457			off, thanks to the <c>grp_led:scroll</c> option. This is a handy visual
458			indicator of which keyboard layout you are using at the moment.
459			</p>
460
461	dertobi123	1.12	</body>
462	drobbins	1.1	</section>
463			</chapter>
464
465			<chapter>
466	dertobi123	1.11	<title>KDE</title>
467			<section>
468			<body>
469
470			<p>
471	flammie	1.32	For KDE you have to install the <c>kde-base/kde-i18n</c> package. Kde-i18n
472			respects <uri link="#variables">LINGUAS variable</uri> described earlier.
473	swift	1.22	</p>
474	dertobi123	1.11
475			</body>
476			</section>
477			</chapter>
478
479			<chapter>
480	antifa	1.4	<title>The Euro Symbol for the Console</title>
481	drobbins	1.1	<section>
482	dertobi123	1.12	<body>
483
484			<p>
485			In order to get your console to display the Euro symbol, you
486	cam	1.13	will need to set <c>CONSOLEFONT</c> in
487	rane	1.35	<path>/etc/conf.d/consolefont</path> to a file found in
488	dertobi123	1.12	<path>/usr/share/consolefonts/</path> (without the
489			<c>.psfu.gz</c>). <c>lat9w-16</c> has the Euro symbol.
490			</p>
491
492	neysx	1.39	<pre caption="Setting the console font">
493	dertobi123	1.12	CONSOLEFONT="lat9w-16"
494	drobbins	1.1	</pre>
495	dertobi123	1.12
496	rane	1.35	<p>
497			You should verify that <c>CONSOLEFONT</c> is in the boot runlevel:
498			</p>
499
500			<pre caption="Verify the proper runlevel">
501	nightmorph	1.47	# <i>rc-update -v show \| grep -i consolefont</i>
502	rane	1.35	</pre>
503
504			<p>
505			If no runlevel is displayed for <c>CONSOLEFONT</c>, then add it to the proper level:
506			</p>
507
508			<pre caption="Add consolefont to boot">
509			# <i>rc-update add consolefont boot</i>
510			</pre>
511
512	dertobi123	1.12	</body>
513	drobbins	1.1	</section>
514			</chapter>
515
516			<chapter>
517	dertobi123	1.12	<title>The Euro Symbol in X</title>
518	drobbins	1.1	<section>
519	dertobi123	1.12	<title>Most Applications</title>
520			<body>
521
522			<p>
523	nightmorph	1.45	Getting the Euro symbol to work properly in X is a little bit tougher. The
524			first thing you should do is change the <c>fixed</c> and <c>variable</c>
525			definitions in <path>/usr/share/fonts/misc/fonts.alias</path> to end in
526			<c>iso8859-15</c> instead of <c>iso8859-1</c>.
527	dertobi123	1.12	</p>
528
529	neysx	1.39	<pre caption="Setting default X fonts">
530	dertobi123	1.12	fixed -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15
531			variable --helvetica-bold-r-normal---120----*-iso8859-15
532	antifa	1.4	</pre>
533	dertobi123	1.12
534			<p>
535	nightmorph	1.45	Some applications use their own font, and you will have to tell them separately
536			to use a font with the Euro symbol. You can do this at a user-specific level in
537			<path>.Xdefaults</path> (you can copy this file to <path>/etc/skel/</path> for
538			use by new users), or at a global level for any application with a resource file
539			in <path>/usr/share/X11/app-defaults/</path> (like xterm). In these files you
540			generally have to change an existing line, rather than adding a new one. To
541			change our xterm font, for instance:
542	dertobi123	1.12	</p>
543
544	neysx	1.39	<pre caption="Setting fonts for xterm">
545	neysx	1.20	<comment>(in your home directory)</comment>
546	nightmorph	1.38	$ <i>echo 'XTerm*font: fixed' >> .Xresources </i>
547			$ <i>xrdb -merge .Xresources</i>
548	drobbins	1.1	</pre>
549	dertobi123	1.12
550			</body>
551	drobbins	1.1	</section>
552	dertobi123	1.12	<section>
553			<title>The Euro symbol in (X)Emacs</title>
554			<body>
555
556			<p>
557			To use the Euro symbol in (X)Emacs, add the following to
558			<path>.Xdefaults</path>:
559			</p>
560	drobbins	1.1
561	antifa	1.4	<pre caption="setting the font for emacs">
562	dertobi123	1.12	Emacs.default.attributeFont: --courier-medium-r----120-----iso8859-15
563	drobbins	1.1	</pre>
564	dertobi123	1.12
565			<p>
566			For XEmacs (not plain Emacs), you have to do a little
567			more. In <path>/home/user/.xemacs/init.el</path>, add:
568			</p>
569
570	antifa	1.4	<pre caption="setting the font for xemacs">
571	neysx	1.39	(define-key global-map '(EuroSign) '[€])
572	drobbins	1.1	</pre>
573	dertobi123	1.12
574			<note>
575			The symbol in the []s is the Euro symbol.
576			</note>
577
578			</body>
579			</section>
580			<section>
581	flammie	1.32	<title>OpenOffice.Org</title>
582	dertobi123	1.12	<body>
583
584			<p>
585	nightmorph	1.36	The current stable <c>app-office/openoffice</c> and
586			<c>app-office/openoffice-bin</c> ebuilds support the <uri
587			link="#variables">LINGUAS variable</uri> for selecting installed GUI language
588			packs. To see the status of GUI translation, hyphenation, spell checking and
589			other localisations on your language, please refer to <uri
590			link="http://l10n.openoffice.org/languages.html">OpenOffice.Org localisation
591			web site</uri>.
592	dertobi123	1.12	</p>
593
594			</body>
595	bennyc	1.8	</section>
596	drobbins	1.1	</chapter>
597
598			</guide>