doc/en/guide-localization.xml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/guide-localization.xml,v 1.38 2006/05/15 12:32:31 nightmorph 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>

<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>1.29</version>
<date>2006-05-25</date>

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

<p>
In order to keep time properly, <path>/etc/localtime</path> must contain the
correct time zone data. Look around in <path>/usr/share/zoneinfo/</path>
and pick your timezone or a near-by big city.  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">
# <i>cp /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>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).
</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, those with highest precedence (ie. those
that override settings below them) are at the top of the table. All variables
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>LC_ALL</ti>
  <ti>
    Define all locale settings at once. This is the top level setting for
    locales which will override any other setting.
  </ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>LC_COLLATE</ti>
  <ti>
    Define alphabetical ordering of strings. This affects eg. 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>LANG</ti>
  <ti>
    Defines all locale settings at once. This setting can be overridden by
    individual LC_* settings above or even by LC_ALL.
  </ti>
</tr>
</table>

<note>
Even though most programs work with LC_ALL only, some of them misbehave if
LC_ALL is set but LANG isn't. If you want to play safe, set them <e>both</e>.
</note>

<p>
Most typically users only set the LANG variable and perhaps LC_CTYPE variable
on user level by adding definitions to shells startup files defining
the environment variable manually from command line:
</p>

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

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

<p>
It is also possible to set a system-wide locale for all users and programs:
</p>

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

<p>
A common practice is to use only per user locale settings and leave the
default system locale unset. In this case system locale defaults to a
special value <c>"C"</c>, which for historical reasons maps to the English
locale.
</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>env | grep -i LC_</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>The userlocales USE flag</title>
<body>

<p>
You will probably only use one or maybe two locales on your system. Up until now
after compiling <c>glibc</c> a full set of all available locales has been
created. As of now you can activate the <c>userlocales</c> USE flag and specify
only the locales you will need in <path>/etc/locales.build</path>.
</p>

<pre caption="Activate the userlocales USE flag especially for glibc">
echo "sys-libs/glibc userlocales" >> /etc/portage/package.use
</pre>

<p>
Now specify the locales you want to be able to use:
</p>

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

<p>
The next step is to re-compile <c>glibc</c>. Of course you can defer this until
the next <c>glibc</c> upgrade is available.
</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 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/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">
<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	<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
2	<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/guide-localization.xml,v 1.38 2006/05/15 12:32:31 nightmorph 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	Alexander Holler
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	<author title="Editor">
20	<mail link="dertobi123@gentoo.org">Tobias Scherbaum</mail>
21	</author>
22	<author title="Editor">
23	<mail link="flammie@gentoo.org">Flammie Pirinen</mail>
24	</author>
25
26	<abstract>
27	This guide should help users localize their Gentoo Linux distribution to any
28	European locale. It uses Germany as a case-study, since it is translated from
29	the German doc. Includes configuration for use of the euro currency symbol.
30	</abstract>
31
32	<version>1.29</version>
33	<date>2006-05-25</date>
34
35	<chapter>
36	<title>Time zone</title>
37	<section>
38	<body>
39
40	<p>
41	In order to keep time properly, <path>/etc/localtime</path> must contain the
42	correct time zone data. Look around in <path>/usr/share/zoneinfo/</path>
43	and pick your timezone or a near-by big city. Please avoid the
44	<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/GMT*</path> timezones as their names do not
45	indicate the expected zones. For instance, <path>GMT-8</path> is in fact GMT+8.
46	</p>
47
48	<pre caption="Setting the timezone">
49	# <i>cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin /etc/localtime</i>
50	# <i>date</i>
51	Sun Feb 16 08:26:44 CET 2003
52	</pre>
53
54	<note>
55	Make sure that the three-letter timezone indicator (in this case "CET")
56	is correct for your area.
57	</note>
58
59	<note>
60	You can set the value of <c>TZ</c> to be everything after the
61	<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo</path> in your shell rc file
62	(<path>.bash_profile</path> for bash) for a user-level setting. In this case
63	<c>TZ="Europe/Berlin"</c>.
64	</note>
65
66	</body>
67	</section>
68	</chapter>
69
70	<chapter>
71	<title>Hardware Clock</title>
72	<section>
73	<body>
74
75	<p>
76	In most Gentoo Linux installations, your hardware clock is set to
77	UTC (or GMT, Greenwich Mean Time) and then your timezone is
78	taken into account to determine the actual, local time. If,
79	for some reason, you need your hardware clock not to be in UTC,
80	you will need to edit <path>/etc/conf.d/clock</path> and change the
81	value of <c>CLOCK</c> from <c>UTC</c> to <c>local</c>.
82	</p>
83
84	<pre caption="local vs. GMT clock">
85	<comment>(recommended:)</comment>
86	CLOCK="UTC"
87	<comment>(or:)</comment>
88	CLOCK="local"
89	</pre>
90
91	</body>
92	</section>
93	</chapter>
94
95	<chapter>
96	<title>Locale system</title>
97	<section>
98	<title>What are locales?</title>
99	<body>
100
101	<p>
102	A Locale is a set of information that most programs use for determining
103	country and language specific settings. The locales and their data
104	are part of the system library and can be found
105	at <path>/usr/share/locale</path> on most systems. A locale name is generally
106	named <c>ab_CD</c> where <c>ab</c> is your two (or three) letter
107	language code (as specified in ISO-639) and <c>CD</c> is your two letter country
108	code (as specified in ISO-3166).
109	</p>
110
111	</body>
112	</section>
113	<section id="variables">
114	<title>Environment variables for locales</title>
115	<body>
116
117	<p>
118	Locale settings are stored in environment variables. These are typically
119	set in the <path>/etc/env.d/02locale</path> (for system-wide
120	settings) and <path>~/.bashrc</path> (for user-specific settings) file.
121	The variables controlling different aspects of locale settings
122	are given in the table below, those with highest precedence (ie. those
123	that override settings below them) are at the top of the table. All variables
124	take one name of a locale in <c>ab_CD</c> format given above.
125	</p>
126
127	<table>
128	<tr>
129	<th>Variable name</th>
130	<th>Explanation</th>
131	</tr>
132	<tr>
133	<ti>LC_ALL</ti>
134	<ti>
135	Define all locale settings at once. This is the top level setting for
136	locales which will override any other setting.
137	</ti>
138	</tr>
139	<tr>
140	<ti>LC_COLLATE</ti>
141	<ti>
142	Define alphabetical ordering of strings. This affects eg. output of sorted
143	directory listing.
144	</ti>
145	</tr>
146	<tr>
147	<ti>LC_CTYPE</ti>
148	<ti>
149	Define the character handling properties for the system. This determines
150	which characters are seen as part of alphabet, numeric and so on. This also
151	determines the character set used, if applicable.
152	</ti>
153	</tr>
154	<tr>
155	<ti>LC_MESSAGES</ti>
156	<ti>
157	Programs' localizations for applications that use message based localization
158	scheme (majority of Gnu programs, see next chapters for closer information
159	which do, and how to get the programs, that don't, to work).
160	</ti>
161	</tr>
162	<tr>
163	<ti>LC_MONETARY</ti>
164	<ti>Defines currency units and formatting of currency type numeric values.</ti>
165	</tr>
166	<tr>
167	<ti>LC_NUMERIC</ti>
168	<ti>
169	Defines formatting of numeric values which aren't monetary. Affects things
170	such as thousand separator and decimal separator.
171	</ti>
172	</tr>
173	<tr>
174	<ti>LC_TIME</ti>
175	<ti>Defines formatting of dates and times.</ti>
176	</tr>
177	<tr>
178	<ti>LC_PAPER</ti>
179	<ti>Defines default paper size.</ti>
180	</tr>
181	<tr>
182	<ti>LANG</ti>
183	<ti>
184	Defines all locale settings at once. This setting can be overridden by
185	individual LC_* settings above or even by LC_ALL.
186	</ti>
187	</tr>
188	</table>
189
190	<note>
191	Even though most programs work with LC_ALL only, some of them misbehave if
192	LC_ALL is set but LANG isn't. If you want to play safe, set them <e>both</e>.
193	</note>
194
195	<p>
196	Most typically users only set the LANG variable and perhaps LC_CTYPE variable
197	on user level by adding definitions to shells startup files defining
198	the environment variable manually from command line:
199	</p>
200
201	<pre caption="Setting the user locale in ~/.bashrc">
202	export LANG="de_DE@euro"
203	</pre>
204
205	<note>
206	Append <c>@euro</c> to your locale if you want to use the Euro
207	currency symbol (€)
208	</note>
209
210	<p>
211	It is also possible to set a system-wide locale for all users and programs:
212	</p>
213
214	<pre caption="Setting the default system locale in /etc/env.d/02locale">
215	LC_ALL="de_DE@euro"
216	LANG="de_DE@euro"
217	</pre>
218
219	<p>
220	A common practice is to use only per user locale settings and leave the
221	default system locale unset. In this case system locale defaults to a
222	special value <c>"C"</c>, which for historical reasons maps to the English
223	locale.
224	</p>
225
226	<p>
227	For message based localization to work in programs that support it, you will
228	probably need to have programs compiled with the <c>nls</c> (Native language
229	support) USE flag set. Most of the programs using nls also need the gettext
230	library to extract and use localized messages. Of course, Portage will
231	automatically install it when needed.
232	</p>
233
234	<p>
235	Once you have set the right locale, be sure to update your environment
236	variables to make your system aware of the change:
237	</p>
238
239	<pre caption="Update the environment">
240	<comment>(For system-wide default locale:)</comment>
241	# <i>env-update && source /etc/profile</i>
242
243	<comment>(For user-specific locale:</comment>
244	$ <i>source ~/.bashrc</i>
245	</pre>
246
247	<p>
248	After this, you will need to kill your X server by pressing
249	<c>Ctrl-Alt-Backspace</c>, log out, then log in as user.
250	</p>
251
252	<p>
253	Now, verify that the changes have taken effect:
254	</p>
255
256	<pre caption="Verify env changes">
257	$ <i>env \| grep -i LC_</i>
258	</pre>
259
260	<p>
261	There is also additional localisation variable called LINGUAS, which affects
262	to localisation files that get installed in gettext-based programs, and decides
263	used localisation for some specific software packages, such as
264	<c>kde-base/kde-i18n</c> and <c>app-office/openoffice</c>. The variable
265	takes in <e>space</e>-separated list of language codes, and suggested
266	place to set it is <path>/etc/make.conf</path>:
267	</p>
268
269	<pre caption="Setting LINGUAS in make.conf">
270	# <i>nano -w /etc/make.conf</i>
271	<comment>(Add in the LINGUAS variable. For instance,
272	for German, Finnish and English:)</comment>
273	LINGUAS="de fi en"
274	</pre>
275
276
277	</body>
278	</section>
279	<section>
280	<title>Generating Specific Locales</title>
281	<body>
282
283	<p>
284	If you use a locale that isn't available by default, you should use
285	<c>localedef</c> to generate your locale. For instance:
286	</p>
287
288	<pre caption="Generating a locale using localedef">
289	# <i>localedef -c -i en_US -f ISO-8859-15 en_US.ISO-8859-15</i>
290	</pre>
291
292	<p>
293	After having generated the locale, you can export the LANG variable as you see
294	fit.
295	</p>
296
297	<pre caption="Exporting the LANG variable">
298	# <i>export LANG="en_US.ISO-8859-15"</i>
299	</pre>
300
301	<p>
302	Be sure to update the environment after the change:
303	</p>
304
305	<pre caption="Update the environment">
306	# <i>env-update && source /etc/profile</i>
307	</pre>
308
309	<p>
310	After this, you will need to kill your X server by pressing
311	<c>Ctrl-Alt-Backspace</c>, log out, then log in as user.
312	</p>
313
314	</body>
315	</section>
316	<section>
317	<title>The userlocales USE flag</title>
318	<body>
319
320	<p>
321	You will probably only use one or maybe two locales on your system. Up until now
322	after compiling <c>glibc</c> a full set of all available locales has been
323	created. As of now you can activate the <c>userlocales</c> USE flag and specify
324	only the locales you will need in <path>/etc/locales.build</path>.
325	</p>
326
327	<pre caption="Activate the userlocales USE flag especially for glibc">
328	echo "sys-libs/glibc userlocales" >> /etc/portage/package.use
329	</pre>
330
331	<p>
332	Now specify the locales you want to be able to use:
333	</p>
334
335	<pre caption="Adding locales to /etc/locales.build">
336	en_US/ISO-8859-1
337	en_US.UTF-8/UTF-8
338	de_DE/ISO-8859-1
339	de_DE@euro/ISO-8859-15
340	</pre>
341
342	<p>
343	The next step is to re-compile <c>glibc</c>. Of course you can defer this until
344	the next <c>glibc</c> upgrade is available.
345	</p>
346
347	</body>
348	</section>
349	</chapter>
350
351	<chapter>
352	<title>Keyboard layout for the console</title>
353	<section>
354	<body>
355
356	<p>
357	The keyboard layout used by the console is set in
358	<path>/etc/conf.d/keymaps</path> by the <c>KEYMAP</c> variable.
359	Valid values can be found in
360	<path>/usr/share/keymaps/<c>{arch}</c>/</path>.
361	<path>i386</path> has further subdivisions into layout
362	(<path>qwerty/</path>, <path>azerty/</path>, etc.). Some
363	languages have multiple options, so you may wish to experiment
364	to decide which one fits your needs best.
365	</p>
366
367	<pre caption="Setting the console keymap">
368	KEYMAP="de"
369	KEYMAP="de-latin1"
370	KEYMAP="de-latin1-nodeadkeys"
371	</pre>
372
373	</body>
374	</section>
375	</chapter>
376
377	<chapter>
378	<title>Keyboard layout for the X server</title>
379	<section>
380	<body>
381
382	<p>
383	The keyboard layout to be used by the X server is specified
384	in <path>/etc/X11/xorg.conf</path> by the <c>XkbLayout</c>
385	option.
386	</p>
387
388	<pre caption="Setting the X keymap">
389	Section "InputDevice"
390	Identifier "Keyboard1"
391	...
392	Option "XkbLayout" "de"
393	#Option "XkbModel" "pc105" <comment>## this is for international keyboards.</comment>
394	# Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys" <comment>## this would be used for xterm input</comment>
395	...
396	</pre>
397
398	<p>
399	If you have an international keyboard layout, you should set the option
400	<c>XkbModel</c> to <c>pc102</c> or <c>pc105</c>, as this will allow mapping of the
401	additional keys specific to your keyboard.
402	</p>
403
404	<p>
405	Deadkeys allow you to press keys that will not show immediately but will be
406	combined with another letter to produce a single character such as é,è,á,à,
407	etc. Setting <c>XkbVariant</c> to <c>nodeadkeys</c> allows input these special
408	characters into X terminals.
409	</p>
410
411	<p>
412	If you would like to switch between more than one keyboard layout (for example
413	English and Russian), all you have to do is add a few lines to
414	<path>xorg.conf</path> that specify the desired layouts and the shortcut
415	command.
416	</p>
417
418	<pre caption="Switching between two keyboard layouts">
419	Section "InputDevice"
420	Identifier "Keyboard1"
421	...
422	Option "XkbLayout" "us,ru"
423	Option "XkbOptions" "grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll"
424	</pre>
425
426	<p>
427	Here, <c>XkbOptions</c> allows you to toggle between keyboard layouts by simply
428	pressing <c>Alt-Shift</c>. This will also toggle the Scroll Lock light on or
429	off, thanks to the <c>grp_led:scroll</c> option. This is a handy visual
430	indicator of which keyboard layout you are using at the moment.
431	</p>
432
433	</body>
434	</section>
435	</chapter>
436
437	<chapter>
438	<title>KDE</title>
439	<section>
440	<body>
441
442	<p>
443	For KDE you have to install the <c>kde-base/kde-i18n</c> package. Kde-i18n
444	respects <uri link="#variables">LINGUAS variable</uri> described earlier.
445	</p>
446
447	</body>
448	</section>
449	</chapter>
450
451	<chapter>
452	<title>The Euro Symbol for the Console</title>
453	<section>
454	<body>
455
456	<p>
457	In order to get your console to display the Euro symbol, you
458	will need to set <c>CONSOLEFONT</c> in
459	<path>/etc/conf.d/consolefont</path> to a file found in
460	<path>/usr/share/consolefonts/</path> (without the
461	<c>.psfu.gz</c>). <c>lat9w-16</c> has the Euro symbol.
462	</p>
463
464	<pre caption="Setting the console font">
465	CONSOLEFONT="lat9w-16"
466	</pre>
467
468	<p>
469	You should verify that <c>CONSOLEFONT</c> is in the boot runlevel:
470	</p>
471
472	<pre caption="Verify the proper runlevel">
473	# <i>rc-update show \| grep -i consolefont</i>
474	</pre>
475
476	<p>
477	If no runlevel is displayed for <c>CONSOLEFONT</c>, then add it to the proper level:
478	</p>
479
480	<pre caption="Add consolefont to boot">
481	# <i>rc-update add consolefont boot</i>
482	</pre>
483
484	</body>
485	</section>
486	</chapter>
487
488	<chapter>
489	<title>The Euro Symbol in X</title>
490	<section>
491	<title>Most Applications</title>
492	<body>
493
494	<p>
495	Getting the Euro symbol to work properly in X is a little
496	bit tougher. The first thing you should do is change the <c>fixed</c>
497	and <c>variable</c> definitions in
498	<path>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/fonts.alias</path> to end
499	in <c>iso8859-15</c> instead of <c>iso8859-1</c>.
500	</p>
501
502	<pre caption="Setting default X fonts">
503	fixed -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15
504	variable --helvetica-bold-r-normal---120----*-iso8859-15
505	</pre>
506
507	<p>
508	Some applications use their own font, and you will have to
509	tell them separately to use a font with the Euro symbol. You
510	can do this at a user-specific level in
511	<path>.Xdefaults</path> (you can copy this file to
512	<path>/etc/skel/</path> for use by new users), or at a global
513	level for any application with a resource file in
514	<path>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/</path> (like xterm). In
515	these files you generally have to change an existing line,
516	rather than adding a new one. To change our xterm font, for
517	instance:
518	</p>
519
520	<pre caption="Setting fonts for xterm">
521	<comment>(in your home directory)</comment>
522	$ <i>echo 'XTerm*font: fixed' >> .Xresources </i>
523	$ <i>xrdb -merge .Xresources</i>
524	</pre>
525
526	</body>
527	</section>
528	<section>
529	<title>The Euro symbol in (X)Emacs</title>
530	<body>
531
532	<p>
533	To use the Euro symbol in (X)Emacs, add the following to
534	<path>.Xdefaults</path>:
535	</p>
536
537	<pre caption="setting the font for emacs">
538	Emacs.default.attributeFont: --courier-medium-r----120-----iso8859-15
539	</pre>
540
541	<p>
542	For XEmacs (not plain Emacs), you have to do a little
543	more. In <path>/home/user/.xemacs/init.el</path>, add:
544	</p>
545
546	<pre caption="setting the font for xemacs">
547	(define-key global-map '(EuroSign) '[€])
548	</pre>
549
550	<note>
551	The symbol in the []s is the Euro symbol.
552	</note>
553
554	</body>
555	</section>
556	<section>
557	<title>OpenOffice.Org</title>
558	<body>
559
560	<p>
561	The current stable <c>app-office/openoffice</c> and
562	<c>app-office/openoffice-bin</c> ebuilds support the <uri
563	link="#variables">LINGUAS variable</uri> for selecting installed GUI language
564	packs. To see the status of GUI translation, hyphenation, spell checking and
565	other localisations on your language, please refer to <uri
566	link="http://l10n.openoffice.org/languages.html">OpenOffice.Org localisation
567	web site</uri>.
568	</p>
569
570	</body>
571	</section>
572	</chapter>
573
574	</guide>