doc/en/guide-localization.xml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/guide-localization.xml,v 1.61 2010/02/14 20:24:37 nightmorph Exp $ -->
<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">

<guide>
<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>1.46</version>
<date>2010-02-14</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.UTF-8</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 overridden later on. Please
use it only when testing and <e>never</e> set it in a startup file.
</warn>

<p>
Most typically users only set the LANG variable on the global basis. This
example is for a unicode German locale:
</p>

<pre caption="Setting the default system locale in /etc/env.d/02locale">
LANG="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="C"
</pre>

<note>
Use <c>de_DE@euro</c> as your LANG 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.UTF-8"
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.UTF-8
</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-l10n</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>
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-l10n</c> and
<c>app-office/koffice-l10n</c> packages. These respect the <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	<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
2	<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/guide-localization.xml,v 1.61 2010/02/14 20:24:37 nightmorph Exp $ -->
3	<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
4
5	<guide>
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	<author title="Editor">
26	<mail link="nightmorph"/>
27	</author>
28
29	<abstract>
30	This guide should help users localize their Gentoo Linux distribution to any
31	European locale. It uses Germany as a case-study, since it is translated from
32	the German doc. Includes configuration for use of the euro currency symbol.
33	</abstract>
34
35	<version>1.46</version>
36	<date>2010-02-14</date>
37
38	<chapter>
39	<title>Time zone</title>
40	<section>
41	<body>
42
43	<p>
44	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	<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	</p>
51
52	<pre caption="Setting the timezone information">
53	# <i>ls /usr/share/zoneinfo</i>
54	<comment>(Suppose you want to use Brussels)</comment>
55	<comment>(First copy the proper zone to localtime)</comment>
56	# <i>cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Brussels /etc/localtime</i>
57	<comment>(Now specify your timezone)</comment>
58	# <i>nano -w /etc/conf.d/clock</i>
59	TIMEZONE="Europe/Brussels"
60
61	# <i>date</i>
62	Wed Mar 8 00:46:05 CET 2006
63	</pre>
64
65	<note>
66	Make sure that the timezone indicator (in this case "CET")
67	is correct for your area.
68	</note>
69
70	<note>
71	You can set the value of <c>TZ</c> to be everything after the
72	<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo</path> in your shell rc file
73	(<path>.bash_profile</path> for bash) for a user-level setting. In this case
74	<c>TZ="Europe/Berlin"</c>.
75	</note>
76
77	</body>
78	</section>
79	</chapter>
80
81	<chapter>
82	<title>Hardware Clock</title>
83	<section>
84	<body>
85
86	<p>
87	In most Gentoo Linux installations, your hardware clock is set to
88	UTC (or GMT, Greenwich Mean Time) and then your timezone is
89	taken into account to determine the actual, local time. If,
90	for some reason, you need your hardware clock not to be in UTC,
91	you will need to edit <path>/etc/conf.d/clock</path> and change the
92	value of <c>CLOCK</c> from <c>UTC</c> to <c>local</c>.
93	</p>
94
95	<pre caption="local vs. GMT clock">
96	<comment>(recommended:)</comment>
97	CLOCK="UTC"
98	<comment>(or:)</comment>
99	CLOCK="local"
100	</pre>
101
102	</body>
103	</section>
104	</chapter>
105
106	<chapter>
107	<title>Locale system</title>
108	<section>
109	<title>What are locales?</title>
110	<body>
111
112	<p>
113	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.UTF-8</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	</p>
123
124	</body>
125	</section>
126	<section id="variables">
127	<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	are given in the table below. All of them
136	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	<ti>LANG</ti>
146	<ti>
147	Defines all locale settings at once, while allowing further individual
148	customization via the LC_* settings below.
149	</ti>
150	</tr>
151	<tr>
152	<ti>LC_COLLATE</ti>
153	<ti>
154	Define alphabetical ordering of strings. This affects e.g. output of sorted
155	directory listing.
156	</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	<ti>LC_ALL</ti>
195	<ti>
196	A special variable for overriding all other settings.
197	</ti>
198	</tr>
199	</table>
200
201	<note>
202	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	</note>
207
208	<warn>
209	Using LC_ALL is strongly discouraged as it can't be overridden later on. Please
210	use it only when testing and <e>never</e> set it in a startup file.
211	</warn>
212
213	<p>
214	Most typically users only set the LANG variable on the global basis. This
215	example is for a unicode German locale:
216	</p>
217
218	<pre caption="Setting the default system locale in /etc/env.d/02locale">
219	LANG="de_DE.UTF-8"
220	LC_COLLATE="C"
221	</pre>
222
223	<note>
224	Use <c>de_DE@euro</c> as your LANG if you want to use the Euro currency symbol
225	(€).
226	</note>
227
228	<p>
229	It's also possible, and pretty common especially in a more traditional UNIX
230	environment, to leave the global settings unchanged, i.e. in the "<c>C</c>"
231	locale. Users can still specify their preferred locale in their own shell RC
232	file:
233	</p>
234
235	<pre caption="Setting the user locale in ~/.bashrc">
236	export LANG="de_DE.UTF-8"
237	export LC_COLLATE="C"
238	</pre>
239
240	<p>
241	Another way of configuring system is to leave it in the default C locale, but
242	enable UTF-8 character representation at the same time. This option is achieved
243	using the following settings in <path>/etc/env.d/02locale</path>:
244	</p>
245
246	<pre caption="Using traditional C locale while specifying UTF-8">
247	LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8
248	</pre>
249
250	<p>
251	Using the above snippet, users will be able to see localized file names
252	properly, while not being forced to your preferred language.
253	</p>
254
255	<p>
256	For message based localization to work in programs that support it, you will
257	probably need to have programs compiled with the <c>nls</c> (Native language
258	support) USE flag set. Most of the programs using nls also need the gettext
259	library to extract and use localized messages. Of course, Portage will
260	automatically install it when needed.
261	</p>
262
263	<p>
264	Once you have set the right locale, be sure to update your environment
265	variables to make your system aware of the change:
266	</p>
267
268	<pre caption="Update the environment">
269	<comment>(For system-wide default locale:)</comment>
270	# <i>env-update && source /etc/profile</i>
271
272	<comment>(For user-specific locale:)</comment>
273	$ <i>source ~/.bashrc</i>
274	</pre>
275
276	<p>
277	After this, you will need to kill your X server by pressing
278	<c>Ctrl-Alt-Backspace</c>, log out, then log in as user.
279	</p>
280
281	<p>
282	Now, verify that the changes have taken effect:
283	</p>
284
285	<pre caption="Verify env changes">
286	$ <i>locale</i>
287	</pre>
288
289	<p>
290	There is also additional localisation variable called LINGUAS, which affects
291	to localisation files that get installed in gettext-based programs, and decides
292	used localisation for some specific software packages, such as
293	<c>kde-base/kde-l10n</c> and <c>app-office/openoffice</c>. The variable
294	takes in <e>space</e>-separated list of language codes, and suggested
295	place to set it is <path>/etc/make.conf</path>:
296	</p>
297
298	<pre caption="Setting LINGUAS in make.conf">
299	# <i>nano -w /etc/make.conf</i>
300	<comment>(Add in the LINGUAS variable. For instance,
301	for German, Finnish and English:)</comment>
302	LINGUAS="de fi en"
303	</pre>
304
305
306	</body>
307	</section>
308	<section>
309	<title>Generating Specific Locales</title>
310	<body>
311
312	<p>
313	You will probably only use one or maybe two locales on your system. You can
314	specify locales you will need in <path>/etc/locale.gen</path>.
315	</p>
316
317	<pre caption="Adding locales to /etc/locale.gen">
318	en_GB ISO-8859-1
319	en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8
320	de_DE ISO-8859-1
321	de_DE@euro ISO-8859-15
322	</pre>
323
324	<p>
325	The next step is to run <c>locale-gen</c>. It will generate all the locales you
326	have specified in the <path>/etc/locale.gen</path> file.
327	</p>
328
329	<note>
330	<c>locale-gen</c> is available in <c>glibc-2.3.6-r4</c> and newer. If you have
331	an older version of glibc, you should update it now.
332	</note>
333
334	<p>
335	You can verify that your selected locales are available by running <c>locale
336	-a</c>.
337	</p>
338
339	</body>
340	</section>
341	</chapter>
342
343	<chapter>
344	<title>Keyboard layout for the console</title>
345	<section>
346	<body>
347
348	<p>
349	The keyboard layout used by the console is set in
350	<path>/etc/conf.d/keymaps</path> by the <c>KEYMAP</c> variable.
351	Valid values can be found in
352	<path>/usr/share/keymaps/<c>{arch}</c>/</path>.
353	<path>i386</path> has further subdivisions into layout
354	(<path>qwerty/</path>, <path>azerty/</path>, etc.). Some
355	languages have multiple options, so you may wish to experiment
356	to decide which one fits your needs best.
357	</p>
358
359	<pre caption="Setting the console keymap">
360	KEYMAP="de"
361	KEYMAP="de-latin1"
362	KEYMAP="de-latin1-nodeadkeys"
363	</pre>
364
365	</body>
366	</section>
367	</chapter>
368
369	<chapter>
370	<title>Keyboard layout for the X server</title>
371	<section>
372	<body>
373
374	<p>
375	The keyboard layout to be used by the X server is specified
376	in <path>/etc/X11/xorg.conf</path> by the <c>XkbLayout</c>
377	option.
378	</p>
379
380	<pre caption="Setting the X keymap">
381	Section "InputDevice"
382	Identifier "Keyboard1"
383	...
384	Option "XkbLayout" "de"
385	#Option "XkbModel" "pc105" <comment>## this is for international keyboards.</comment>
386	# Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys" <comment>## this would be used for xterm input</comment>
387	...
388	</pre>
389
390	<p>
391	If you have an international keyboard layout, you should set the option
392	<c>XkbModel</c> to <c>pc102</c> or <c>pc105</c>, as this will allow mapping of the
393	additional keys specific to your keyboard.
394	</p>
395
396	<p>
397	Deadkeys allow you to press keys that will not show immediately but will be
398	combined with another letter to produce a single character such as é,è,á,à,
399	etc. Setting <c>XkbVariant</c> to <c>nodeadkeys</c> allows input these special
400	characters into X terminals.
401	</p>
402
403	<p>
404	If you would like to switch between more than one keyboard layout (for example
405	English and Russian), all you have to do is add a few lines to
406	<path>xorg.conf</path> that specify the desired layouts and the shortcut
407	command.
408	</p>
409
410	<pre caption="Switching between two keyboard layouts">
411	Section "InputDevice"
412	Identifier "Keyboard1"
413	...
414	Option "XkbLayout" "us,ru"
415	Option "XkbOptions" "grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll"
416	</pre>
417
418	<p>
419	Here, <c>XkbOptions</c> allows you to toggle between keyboard layouts by simply
420	pressing <c>Alt-Shift</c>. This will also toggle the Scroll Lock light on or
421	off, thanks to the <c>grp_led:scroll</c> option. This is a handy visual
422	indicator of which keyboard layout you are using at the moment.
423	</p>
424
425	</body>
426	</section>
427	</chapter>
428
429	<chapter>
430	<title>KDE</title>
431	<section>
432	<body>
433
434	<p>
435	For KDE you have to install the <c>kde-base/kde-l10n</c> and
436	<c>app-office/koffice-l10n</c> packages. These respect the <uri
437	link="#variables">LINGUAS variable</uri> described earlier.
438	</p>
439
440	</body>
441	</section>
442	</chapter>
443
444	<chapter>
445	<title>The Euro Symbol for the Console</title>
446	<section>
447	<body>
448
449	<p>
450	In order to get your console to display the Euro symbol, you will need to set
451	<c>CONSOLEFONT</c> in <path>/etc/conf.d/consolefont</path> to a file found in
452	<path>/usr/share/consolefonts/</path> (without the <c>.psfu.gz</c>).
453	<c>lat9w-16</c> has the Euro symbol.
454	</p>
455
456	<pre caption="Setting the console font">
457	CONSOLEFONT="lat9w-16"
458	</pre>
459
460	<p>
461	You should verify that <c>CONSOLEFONT</c> is in the boot runlevel:
462	</p>
463
464	<pre caption="Verify the proper runlevel">
465	# <i>rc-update -v show \| grep -i consolefont</i>
466	</pre>
467
468	<p>
469	If no runlevel is displayed for <c>CONSOLEFONT</c>, then add it to the proper level:
470	</p>
471
472	<pre caption="Add consolefont to boot">
473	# <i>rc-update add consolefont boot</i>
474	</pre>
475
476	</body>
477	</section>
478	</chapter>
479
480	<chapter>
481	<title>The Euro Symbol in X</title>
482	<section>
483	<title>Most Applications</title>
484	<body>
485
486	<p>
487	Getting the Euro symbol to work properly in X is a little bit tougher. The
488	first thing you should do is change the <c>fixed</c> and <c>variable</c>
489	definitions in <path>/usr/share/fonts/misc/fonts.alias</path> to end in
490	<c>iso8859-15</c> instead of <c>iso8859-1</c>.
491	</p>
492
493	<pre caption="Setting default X fonts">
494	fixed -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15
495	variable --helvetica-bold-r-normal---120----*-iso8859-15
496	</pre>
497
498	<p>
499	Some applications use their own font, and you will have to tell them separately
500	to use a font with the Euro symbol. You can do this at a user-specific level in
501	<path>.Xdefaults</path> (you can copy this file to <path>/etc/skel/</path> for
502	use by new users), or at a global level for any application with a resource file
503	in <path>/usr/share/X11/app-defaults/</path> (like xterm). In these files you
504	generally have to change an existing line, rather than adding a new one. To
505	change our xterm font, for instance:
506	</p>
507
508	<pre caption="Setting fonts for xterm">
509	<comment>(in your home directory)</comment>
510	$ <i>echo 'XTerm*font: fixed' >> .Xresources </i>
511	$ <i>xrdb -merge .Xresources</i>
512	</pre>
513
514	</body>
515	</section>
516	<section>
517	<title>The Euro symbol in (X)Emacs</title>
518	<body>
519
520	<p>
521	To use the Euro symbol in (X)Emacs, add the following to
522	<path>.Xdefaults</path>:
523	</p>
524
525	<pre caption="setting the font for emacs">
526	Emacs.default.attributeFont: --courier-medium-r----120-----iso8859-15
527	</pre>
528
529	<p>
530	For XEmacs (not plain Emacs), you have to do a little
531	more. In <path>/home/user/.xemacs/init.el</path>, add:
532	</p>
533
534	<pre caption="setting the font for xemacs">
535	(define-key global-map '(EuroSign) '[€])
536	</pre>
537
538	<note>
539	The symbol in the []s is the Euro symbol.
540	</note>
541
542	</body>
543	</section>
544	<section>
545	<title>OpenOffice.Org</title>
546	<body>
547
548	<p>
549	The current stable <c>app-office/openoffice</c> and
550	<c>app-office/openoffice-bin</c> ebuilds support the <uri
551	link="#variables">LINGUAS variable</uri> for selecting installed GUI language
552	packs. To see the status of GUI translation, hyphenation, spell checking and
553	other localisations on your language, please refer to <uri
554	link="http://l10n.openoffice.org/languages.html">OpenOffice.Org localisation
555	web site</uri>.
556	</p>
557
558	</body>
559	</section>
560	</chapter>
561
562	</guide>