doc/en/guide-localization.xml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!-- $Header: /home/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/guide-localization.xml,v 1.13 2004/04/11 10:52:16 cam Exp $ -->
<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">

<guide link="/doc/en/guide-localization.xml">
<title>Gentoo Linux Localization Guide</title>
<author title="Author">
  <mail link="holler@gentoo.de">Alexander Holler</mail>
</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>

<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>1.10</version>
<date>April 11, 2004</date>

<chapter>
<title>Timezone</title>
<section>
<body>

<p>
In order to keep time properly, <path>/etc/localtime</path> must point to
the correct time zone data file.  Look around in
<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo/</path> and pick your timezone or a near-by big city.
</p>

<pre caption="setting the timezone">
# <i>ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin /etc/localtime</i>
# <i>date</i>
Sun Feb 16 08:26:44 CET 2003
</pre>

<note>
Make sure that the three-letter 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>System Clock</title>
<section>
<body>

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

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

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

<chapter>
<title>POSIX Locale</title>
<section>
<title>Using Existing Locales</title>
<body>

<p>
The next step is to set the <c>LANG</c> shell variable, which
is used by your shell and window manager (and some other
applications).  Valid values can be found in
<path>/usr/share/locale</path> and generally take the form
<c>ab_CD</c>, where <c>ab</c> is your two letter language code
and <c>CD</c> is your two letter country code.  The <c>_CD</c>
is left off if your language is only (or primarily) spoken in
one country.  <c>LANG</c> can be set in
<path>/etc/profile</path> if you want it to take effect
system-wide, or in <path>~/.bashrc</path> as a user-specific
setting.
</p>

<pre caption="setting the POSIX locale">
export LANG="de_DE@euro"
</pre>

<note>
Appended <c>@euro</c> to your locale if you want to use the new Euro
currency symbol (&#8364;)
</note>

</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>

</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/rc.conf</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/XF86Config</path> by the <c>XkbLayout</c>
option.
</p>

<pre caption="setting the X keymap">
 Section "InputDevice"
     Identifier  "Keyboard1"
     ...
     Option "XkbLayout"    "de"
     # Option "XkbVariant"  "nodeadkeys"
     ...
</pre>

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

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

<p>
For KDE you have to install the kde-i18n package with the appropriate
LINGUAS environment variable set:</p>

<pre caption="Install localized KDE">
# <i>LINGUAS="de" emerge kde-i18n</i>
</pre>

</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/rc.conf</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>

</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/X11R6/lib/X11/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/X11R6/lib/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">
<codenote>(in your home directory)</codenote>
# <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) '[&#8364;])
</pre>

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

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Language for OpenOffice</title>
<body>

<note>
Customized default language is not available for openoffice-bin ebuild. The
default language in the openoffice-bin is ENUS.
</note>

<p>
The default language for OpenOffice is set as "ENUS"(01). If you wish to
change the default language for OpenOffice, check the ebuild for the
default language code. 
</p>

<pre caption="emerge openoffice with desired default language">
# <i>LANGUAGE="01" emerge openoffice</i>
<comment>01 is the ENUS language code for openoffice</comment>
</pre>

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

</guide>
1	<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
2	<!-- $Header: /home/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/guide-localization.xml,v 1.13 2004/04/11 10:52:16 cam Exp $ -->
3	<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
4
5	<guide link="/doc/en/guide-localization.xml">
6	<title>Gentoo Linux Localization Guide</title>
7	<author title="Author">
8	<mail link="holler@gentoo.de">Alexander Holler</mail>
9	</author>
10	<author title="Translator/Editor">
11	<mail link="slucy@uchicago.edu">Steven Lucy</mail>
12	</author>
13	<author title="Editor">
14	<mail link="bennyc@gentoo.org">Benny Chuang</mail>
15	</author>
16	<author title="Editor">
17	<mail link="pylon@gentoo.org">Lars Weiler</mail>
18	</author>
19
20	<abstract>
21	This guide should help users localize their Gentoo Linux distribution to any
22	European locale. It uses Germany as a case-study, since it is translated from
23	the German doc. Includes configuration for use of the Euro currency symbol.
24	</abstract>
25
26	<version>1.10</version>
27	<date>April 11, 2004</date>
28
29	<chapter>
30	<title>Timezone</title>
31	<section>
32	<body>
33
34	<p>
35	In order to keep time properly, <path>/etc/localtime</path> must point to
36	the correct time zone data file. Look around in
37	<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo/</path> and pick your timezone or a near-by big city.
38	</p>
39
40	<pre caption="setting the timezone">
41	# <i>ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin /etc/localtime</i>
42	# <i>date</i>
43	Sun Feb 16 08:26:44 CET 2003
44	</pre>
45
46	<note>
47	Make sure that the three-letter timezone indicator (in this case "CET")
48	is correct for your area.
49	</note>
50
51	<note>
52	You can set the value of <c>TZ</c> to be everything after the
53	<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo</path> in your shell rc file
54	(<path>.bash_profile</path> for bash) for a user-level setting. In this case
55	<c>TZ="Europe/Berlin"</c>.
56	</note>
57
58	</body>
59	</section>
60	</chapter>
61
62	<chapter>
63	<title>System Clock</title>
64	<section>
65	<body>
66
67	<p>
68	In most Gentoo Linux installations, your system clock is set to
69	UTC (or GMT, Greenwhich Mean Time) and then your timezone is
70	taken into account to determine the actual, local time. If,
71	for some reason, you need your system clock not to be in UTC,
72	you will need to edit <path>/etc/rc.conf</path> and change the
73	value of <c>CLOCK</c>.
74	</p>
75
76	<pre caption="local vs. GMT clock">
77	<codenote>recommended:</codenote>
78	CLOCK="UTC"
79	<codenote>or:</codenote>
80	CLOCK="local"
81	</pre>
82
83	</body>
84	</section>
85	</chapter>
86
87	<chapter>
88	<title>POSIX Locale</title>
89	<section>
90	<title>Using Existing Locales</title>
91	<body>
92
93	<p>
94	The next step is to set the <c>LANG</c> shell variable, which
95	is used by your shell and window manager (and some other
96	applications). Valid values can be found in
97	<path>/usr/share/locale</path> and generally take the form
98	<c>ab_CD</c>, where <c>ab</c> is your two letter language code
99	and <c>CD</c> is your two letter country code. The <c>_CD</c>
100	is left off if your language is only (or primarily) spoken in
101	one country. <c>LANG</c> can be set in
102	<path>/etc/profile</path> if you want it to take effect
103	system-wide, or in <path>~/.bashrc</path> as a user-specific
104	setting.
105	</p>
106
107	<pre caption="setting the POSIX locale">
108	export LANG="de_DE@euro"
109	</pre>
110
111	<note>
112	Appended <c>@euro</c> to your locale if you want to use the new Euro
113	currency symbol (€)
114	</note>
115
116	</body>
117	</section>
118	<section>
119	<title>Generating Specific Locales</title>
120	<body>
121
122	<p>
123	If you use a locale that isn't available by default, you should use
124	<c>localedef</c> to generate your locale. For instance:
125	</p>
126
127	<pre caption="Generating a locale using localedef">
128	# <i>localedef -c -i en_US -f ISO-8859-15 en_US.ISO-8859-15</i>
129	</pre>
130
131	<p>
132	After having generated the locale, you can export the LANG variable as you see
133	fit.
134	</p>
135
136	<pre caption="Exporting the LANG variable">
137	# <i>export LANG="en_US.ISO-8859-15"</i>
138	</pre>
139
140	</body>
141	</section>
142	</chapter>
143
144	<chapter>
145	<title>Keyboard layout for the console</title>
146	<section>
147	<body>
148
149	<p>
150	The keyboard layout used by the console is set in
151	<path>/etc/rc.conf</path> by the <c>KEYMAP</c> variable.
152	Valid values can be found in
153	<path>/usr/share/keymaps/<c>{arch}</c>/</path>.
154	<path>i386</path> has further subdivisions into layout
155	(<path>qwerty/</path>, <path>azerty/</path>, etc.). Some
156	languages have multiple options, so you may wish to experiment
157	to decide which one fits your needs best.
158	</p>
159
160	<pre caption="setting the console keymap">
161	KEYMAP="de"
162	KEYMAP="de-latin1"
163	KEYMAP="de-latin1-nodeadkeys"
164	</pre>
165
166	</body>
167	</section>
168	</chapter>
169
170	<chapter>
171	<title>Keyboard layout for the X server</title>
172	<section>
173	<body>
174
175	<p>
176	The keyboard layout to be used by the X server is specified
177	in <path>/etc/X11/XF86Config</path> by the <c>XkbLayout</c>
178	option.
179	</p>
180
181	<pre caption="setting the X keymap">
182	Section "InputDevice"
183	Identifier "Keyboard1"
184	...
185	Option "XkbLayout" "de"
186	# Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
187	...
188	</pre>
189
190	</body>
191	</section>
192	</chapter>
193
194	<chapter>
195	<title>KDE</title>
196	<section>
197	<body>
198
199	<p>
200	For KDE you have to install the kde-i18n package with the appropriate
201	LINGUAS environment variable set:</p>
202
203	<pre caption="Install localized KDE">
204	# <i>LINGUAS="de" emerge kde-i18n</i>
205	</pre>
206
207	</body>
208	</section>
209	</chapter>
210
211	<chapter>
212	<title>The Euro Symbol for the Console</title>
213	<section>
214	<body>
215
216	<p>
217	In order to get your console to display the Euro symbol, you
218	will need to set <c>CONSOLEFONT</c> in
219	<path>/etc/rc.conf</path> to a file found in
220	<path>/usr/share/consolefonts/</path> (without the
221	<c>.psfu.gz</c>). <c>lat9w-16</c> has the Euro symbol.
222	</p>
223
224	<pre caption="setting the console font">
225	CONSOLEFONT="lat9w-16"
226	</pre>
227
228	</body>
229	</section>
230	</chapter>
231
232	<chapter>
233	<title>The Euro Symbol in X</title>
234	<section>
235	<title>Most Applications</title>
236	<body>
237
238	<p>
239	Getting the Euro symbol to work properly in X is a little
240	bit tougher. The first thing you should do is change the <c>fixed</c>
241	and <c>variable</c> definitions in
242	<path>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/fonts.alias</path> to end
243	in <c>iso8859-15</c> instead of <c>iso8859-1</c>.
244	</p>
245
246	<pre caption="setting default X fonts">
247	fixed -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15
248	variable --helvetica-bold-r-normal---120----*-iso8859-15
249	</pre>
250
251	<p>
252	Some applications use their own font, and you will have to
253	tell them separately to use a font with the Euro symbol. You
254	can do this at a user-specific level in
255	<path>.Xdefaults</path> (you can copy this file to
256	<path>/etc/skel/</path> for use by new users), or at a global
257	level for any application with a resource file in
258	<path>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/</path> (like xterm). In
259	these files you generally have to change an existing line,
260	rather than adding a new one. To change our xterm font, for
261	instance:
262	</p>
263
264	<pre caption="setting fonts for xterm">
265	<codenote>(in your home directory)</codenote>
266	# <i>echo 'XTerm*font: fixed' >> .Xresources </i>
267	# <i>xrdb -merge .Xresources</i>
268	</pre>
269
270	</body>
271	</section>
272	<section>
273	<title>The Euro symbol in (X)Emacs</title>
274	<body>
275
276	<p>
277	To use the Euro symbol in (X)Emacs, add the following to
278	<path>.Xdefaults</path>:
279	</p>
280
281	<pre caption="setting the font for emacs">
282	Emacs.default.attributeFont: --courier-medium-r----120-----iso8859-15
283	</pre>
284
285	<p>
286	For XEmacs (not plain Emacs), you have to do a little
287	more. In <path>/home/user/.xemacs/init.el</path>, add:
288	</p>
289
290	<pre caption="setting the font for xemacs">
291	(define-key global-map '(EuroSign) '[€])
292	</pre>
293
294	<note>
295	The symbol in the []s is the Euro symbol.
296	</note>
297
298	</body>
299	</section>
300	<section>
301	<title>Language for OpenOffice</title>
302	<body>
303
304	<note>
305	Customized default language is not available for openoffice-bin ebuild. The
306	default language in the openoffice-bin is ENUS.
307	</note>
308
309	<p>
310	The default language for OpenOffice is set as "ENUS"(01). If you wish to
311	change the default language for OpenOffice, check the ebuild for the
312	default language code.
313	</p>
314
315	<pre caption="emerge openoffice with desired default language">
316	# <i>LANGUAGE="01" emerge openoffice</i>
317	<comment>01 is the ENUS language code for openoffice</comment>
318	</pre>
319
320	</body>
321	</section>
322	</chapter>
323
324	</guide>