doc/en/guide-localization.xml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/guide-localization.xml,v 1.66 2012/10/31 18:37:53 swift 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>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="klondike"/>
</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>5</version>
<date>2013-01-13</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/timezone</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/timezone</i>
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/hwclock</path> (or if you use Gentoo
BSD: <path>/etc/conf.d/adjkerntz</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
(€) on non UTF-8 based locales.
</note>

<p>
A list of locales that can be used is provided as
<path>/usr/portage/profiles/desc/linguas.desc</path>:
</p>

<pre caption="Getting usable locales for the French language">
$ <i>grep -i french /usr/portage/profiles/desc/linguas.desc</i>
fr - French locale
fr_CA - French locale for Canada
fr_FR - French locale for France
</pre>

<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/libreofficeoffice</c>. The variable
takes in <e>space</e>-separated list of language codes, and suggested
place to set it is <path>/etc/portage/make.conf</path>:
</p>

<pre caption="Setting LINGUAS in make.conf">
# <i>nano -w /etc/portage/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 "InputClass"
        Identifier "keyboard-all"
        Driver "evdev"
        Option "XkbLayout" "de"
        #Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
        MatchIsKeyboard "on"
EndSection
</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 "InputClass"
        Identifier "keyboard-all"
        Driver "evdev"
        Option "XkbLayout"    "us,ru"
        Option "XkbOptions"   "grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll"
        MatchIsKeyboard "on"
EndSection
</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/calligra-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 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>LibreOffice</title>
<body>

<p>
The current stable <c>app-office/libreoffice</c> and
<c>app-office/libreoffice-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="https://translations.documentfoundation.org/">LibreOffice translation 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 1.66 2012/10/31 18:37:53 swift 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	<author title="Editor">
29	<mail link="klondike"/>
30	</author>
31
32	<abstract>
33	This guide should help users localize their Gentoo Linux distribution to any
34	European locale. It uses Germany as a case-study, since it is translated from
35	the German doc. Includes configuration for use of the euro currency symbol.
36	</abstract>
37
38	<version>5</version>
39	<date>2013-01-13</date>
40
41	<chapter>
42	<title>Time zone</title>
43	<section>
44	<body>
45
46	<p>
47	In order to keep time properly, you need to select your timezone so that your
48	system knows where it is located. Look for your timezone in
49	<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo</path>. You then set your timezone in
50	<path>/etc/timezone</path>. Please avoid the
51	<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/GMT*</path> timezones as their names do not
52	indicate the expected zones. For instance, <path>GMT-8</path> is in fact GMT+8.
53	</p>
54
55	<pre caption="Setting the timezone information">
56	# <i>ls /usr/share/zoneinfo</i>
57	<comment>(Suppose you want to use Brussels)</comment>
58	<comment>(First copy the proper zone to localtime)</comment>
59	# <i>cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Brussels /etc/localtime</i>
60	<comment>(Now specify your timezone)</comment>
61	# <i>nano -w /etc/timezone</i>
62	Europe/Brussels
63
64	# <i>date</i>
65	Wed Mar 8 00:46:05 CET 2006
66	</pre>
67
68	<note>
69	Make sure that the timezone indicator (in this case "CET")
70	is correct for your area.
71	</note>
72
73	<note>
74	You can set the value of <c>TZ</c> to be everything after the
75	<path>/usr/share/zoneinfo</path> in your shell rc file
76	(<path>.bash_profile</path> for bash) for a user-level setting. In this case
77	<c>TZ="Europe/Berlin"</c>.
78	</note>
79
80	</body>
81	</section>
82	</chapter>
83
84	<chapter>
85	<title>Hardware Clock</title>
86	<section>
87	<body>
88
89	<p>
90	In most Gentoo Linux installations, your hardware clock is set to
91	UTC (or GMT, Greenwich Mean Time) and then your timezone is
92	taken into account to determine the actual, local time. If,
93	for some reason, you need your hardware clock not to be in UTC,
94	you will need to edit <path>/etc/conf.d/hwclock</path> (or if you use Gentoo
95	BSD: <path>/etc/conf.d/adjkerntz</path>) and change the
96	value of <c>clock</c> from <c>UTC</c> to <c>local</c>.
97	</p>
98
99	<pre caption="local vs. GMT clock">
100	<comment>(recommended:)</comment>
101	clock="UTC"
102	<comment>(or:)</comment>
103	clock="local"
104	</pre>
105
106	</body>
107	</section>
108	</chapter>
109
110	<chapter>
111	<title>Locale system</title>
112	<section>
113	<title>What are locales?</title>
114	<body>
115
116	<p>
117	A Locale is a set of information that most programs use for determining country
118	and language specific settings. The locales and their data are part of the
119	system library and can be found at <path>/usr/share/locale</path> on most
120	systems. A locale name is generally named <c>ab_CD</c> where <c>ab</c> is your
121	two (or three) letter language code (as specified in ISO-639) and <c>CD</c> is
122	your two letter country code (as specified in ISO-3166). Variants are often
123	appended to locale names, e.g. <c>en_GB.UTF-8</c> or <c>de_DE@euro</c>. Please
124	explore <uri link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locale">Wikipedia</uri> to read
125	more about locales and related articles.
126	</p>
127
128	</body>
129	</section>
130	<section id="variables">
131	<title>Environment variables for locales</title>
132	<body>
133
134	<p>
135	Locale settings are stored in environment variables. These are typically
136	set in the <path>/etc/env.d/02locale</path> (for system-wide
137	settings) and <path>~/.bashrc</path> (for user-specific settings) file.
138	The variables controlling different aspects of locale settings
139	are given in the table below. All of them
140	take one name of a locale in <c>ab_CD</c> format given above.
141	</p>
142
143	<table>
144	<tr>
145	<th>Variable name</th>
146	<th>Explanation</th>
147	</tr>
148	<tr>
149	<ti>LANG</ti>
150	<ti>
151	Defines all locale settings at once, while allowing further individual
152	customization via the LC_* settings below.
153	</ti>
154	</tr>
155	<tr>
156	<ti>LC_COLLATE</ti>
157	<ti>
158	Define alphabetical ordering of strings. This affects e.g. output of sorted
159	directory listing.
160	</ti>
161	</tr>
162	<tr>
163	<ti>LC_CTYPE</ti>
164	<ti>
165	Define the character handling properties for the system. This determines
166	which characters are seen as part of alphabet, numeric and so on. This also
167	determines the character set used, if applicable.
168	</ti>
169	</tr>
170	<tr>
171	<ti>LC_MESSAGES</ti>
172	<ti>
173	Programs' localizations for applications that use message based localization
174	scheme (majority of Gnu programs, see next chapters for closer information
175	which do, and how to get the programs, that don't, to work).
176	</ti>
177	</tr>
178	<tr>
179	<ti>LC_MONETARY</ti>
180	<ti>Defines currency units and formatting of currency type numeric values.</ti>
181	</tr>
182	<tr>
183	<ti>LC_NUMERIC</ti>
184	<ti>
185	Defines formatting of numeric values which aren't monetary. Affects things
186	such as thousand separator and decimal separator.
187	</ti>
188	</tr>
189	<tr>
190	<ti>LC_TIME</ti>
191	<ti>Defines formatting of dates and times.</ti>
192	</tr>
193	<tr>
194	<ti>LC_PAPER</ti>
195	<ti>Defines default paper size.</ti>
196	</tr>
197	<tr>
198	<ti>LC_ALL</ti>
199	<ti>
200	A special variable for overriding all other settings.
201	</ti>
202	</tr>
203	</table>
204
205	<note>
206	Some programs are written in such a way that they expect traditional English
207	ordering of the alphabet, while some locales, most notably the Estonian one, use
208	a different ordering. Therefore it's recommended to explicitly set LC_COLLATE to C
209	when dealing with system-wide settings.
210	</note>
211
212	<warn>
213	Using LC_ALL is strongly discouraged as it can't be overridden later on. Please
214	use it only when testing and <e>never</e> set it in a startup file.
215	</warn>
216
217	<p>
218	Most typically users only set the LANG variable on the global basis. This
219	example is for a unicode German locale:
220	</p>
221
222	<pre caption="Setting the default system locale in /etc/env.d/02locale">
223	LANG="de_DE.UTF-8"
224	LC_COLLATE="C"
225	</pre>
226
227	<note>
228	Use <c>de_DE@euro</c> as your LANG if you want to use the Euro currency symbol
229	(€) on non UTF-8 based locales.
230	</note>
231
232	<p>
233	A list of locales that can be used is provided as
234	<path>/usr/portage/profiles/desc/linguas.desc</path>:
235	</p>
236
237	<pre caption="Getting usable locales for the French language">
238	$ <i>grep -i french /usr/portage/profiles/desc/linguas.desc</i>
239	fr - French locale
240	fr_CA - French locale for Canada
241	fr_FR - French locale for France
242	</pre>
243
244	<p>
245	It's also possible, and pretty common especially in a more traditional UNIX
246	environment, to leave the global settings unchanged, i.e. in the "<c>C</c>"
247	locale. Users can still specify their preferred locale in their own shell RC
248	file:
249	</p>
250
251	<pre caption="Setting the user locale in ~/.bashrc">
252	export LANG="de_DE.UTF-8"
253	export LC_COLLATE="C"
254	</pre>
255
256	<p>
257	Another way of configuring system is to leave it in the default C locale, but
258	enable UTF-8 character representation at the same time. This option is achieved
259	using the following settings in <path>/etc/env.d/02locale</path>:
260	</p>
261
262	<pre caption="Using traditional C locale while specifying UTF-8">
263	LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8
264	</pre>
265
266	<p>
267	Using the above snippet, users will be able to see localized file names
268	properly, while not being forced to your preferred language.
269	</p>
270
271	<p>
272	For message based localization to work in programs that support it, you will
273	probably need to have programs compiled with the <c>nls</c> (Native language
274	support) USE flag set. Most of the programs using nls also need the gettext
275	library to extract and use localized messages. Of course, Portage will
276	automatically install it when needed.
277	</p>
278
279	<p>
280	Once you have set the right locale, be sure to update your environment
281	variables to make your system aware of the change:
282	</p>
283
284	<pre caption="Update the environment">
285	<comment>(For system-wide default locale:)</comment>
286	# <i>env-update && source /etc/profile</i>
287
288	<comment>(For user-specific locale:)</comment>
289	$ <i>source ~/.bashrc</i>
290	</pre>
291
292	<p>
293	After this, you will need to kill your X server by pressing
294	<c>Ctrl-Alt-Backspace</c>, log out, then log in as user.
295	</p>
296
297	<p>
298	Now, verify that the changes have taken effect:
299	</p>
300
301	<pre caption="Verify env changes">
302	$ <i>locale</i>
303	</pre>
304
305	<p>
306	There is also additional localisation variable called LINGUAS, which affects
307	to localisation files that get installed in gettext-based programs, and decides
308	used localisation for some specific software packages, such as
309	<c>kde-base/kde-l10n</c> and <c>app-office/libreofficeoffice</c>. The variable
310	takes in <e>space</e>-separated list of language codes, and suggested
311	place to set it is <path>/etc/portage/make.conf</path>:
312	</p>
313
314	<pre caption="Setting LINGUAS in make.conf">
315	# <i>nano -w /etc/portage/make.conf</i>
316	<comment>(Add in the LINGUAS variable. For instance,
317	for German, Finnish and English:)</comment>
318	LINGUAS="de fi en"
319	</pre>
320
321
322	</body>
323	</section>
324	<section>
325	<title>Generating Specific Locales</title>
326	<body>
327
328	<p>
329	You will probably only use one or maybe two locales on your system. You can
330	specify locales you will need in <path>/etc/locale.gen</path>.
331	</p>
332
333	<pre caption="Adding locales to /etc/locale.gen">
334	en_GB ISO-8859-1
335	en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8
336	de_DE ISO-8859-1
337	de_DE@euro ISO-8859-15
338	</pre>
339
340	<p>
341	The next step is to run <c>locale-gen</c>. It will generate all the locales you
342	have specified in the <path>/etc/locale.gen</path> file.
343	</p>
344
345	<note>
346	<c>locale-gen</c> is available in <c>glibc-2.3.6-r4</c> and newer. If you have
347	an older version of glibc, you should update it now.
348	</note>
349
350	<p>
351	You can verify that your selected locales are available by running <c>locale
352	-a</c>.
353	</p>
354
355	</body>
356	</section>
357	</chapter>
358
359	<chapter>
360	<title>Keyboard layout for the console</title>
361	<section>
362	<body>
363
364	<p>
365	The keyboard layout used by the console is set in
366	<path>/etc/conf.d/keymaps</path> by the <c>keymap</c> variable.
367	Valid values can be found in
368	<path>/usr/share/keymaps/<c>{arch}</c>/</path>.
369	<path>i386</path> has further subdivisions into layout
370	(<path>qwerty/</path>, <path>azerty/</path>, etc.). Some
371	languages have multiple options, so you may wish to experiment
372	to decide which one fits your needs best.
373	</p>
374
375	<pre caption="Setting the console keymap">
376	keymap="de"
377	keymap="de-latin1"
378	keymap="de-latin1-nodeadkeys"
379	</pre>
380
381	</body>
382	</section>
383	</chapter>
384
385	<chapter>
386	<title>Keyboard layout for the X server</title>
387	<section>
388	<body>
389
390	<p>
391	The keyboard layout to be used by the X server is specified
392	in <path>/etc/X11/xorg.conf</path> by the <c>XkbLayout</c>
393	option.
394	</p>
395
396	<pre caption="Setting the X keymap">
397	Section "InputClass"
398	Identifier "keyboard-all"
399	Driver "evdev"
400	Option "XkbLayout" "de"
401	#Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
402	MatchIsKeyboard "on"
403	EndSection
404	</pre>
405
406	<p>
407	If you have an international keyboard layout, you should set the option
408	<c>XkbModel</c> to <c>pc102</c> or <c>pc105</c>, as this will allow mapping of the
409	additional keys specific to your keyboard.
410	</p>
411
412	<p>
413	Deadkeys allow you to press keys that will not show immediately but will be
414	combined with another letter to produce a single character such as é,è,á,à,
415	etc. Setting <c>XkbVariant</c> to <c>nodeadkeys</c> allows input these special
416	characters into X terminals.
417	</p>
418
419	<p>
420	If you would like to switch between more than one keyboard layout (for example
421	English and Russian), all you have to do is add a few lines to
422	<path>xorg.conf</path> that specify the desired layouts and the shortcut
423	command.
424	</p>
425
426	<pre caption="Switching between two keyboard layouts">
427	Section "InputClass"
428	Identifier "keyboard-all"
429	Driver "evdev"
430	Option "XkbLayout" "us,ru"
431	Option "XkbOptions" "grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll"
432	MatchIsKeyboard "on"
433	EndSection
434	</pre>
435
436	<p>
437	Here, <c>XkbOptions</c> allows you to toggle between keyboard layouts by simply
438	pressing <c>Alt-Shift</c>. This will also toggle the Scroll Lock light on or
439	off, thanks to the <c>grp_led:scroll</c> option. This is a handy visual
440	indicator of which keyboard layout you are using at the moment.
441	</p>
442
443	</body>
444	</section>
445	</chapter>
446
447	<chapter>
448	<title>KDE</title>
449	<section>
450	<body>
451
452	<p>
453	For KDE you have to install the <c>kde-base/kde-l10n</c> and
454	<c>app-office/calligra-l10n</c> packages. These respect the <uri
455	link="#variables">LINGUAS variable</uri> described earlier.
456	</p>
457
458	</body>
459	</section>
460	</chapter>
461
462	<chapter>
463	<title>The Euro Symbol for the Console</title>
464	<section>
465	<body>
466
467	<p>
468	In order to get your console to display the Euro symbol, you will need to set
469	<c>consolefont</c> in <path>/etc/conf.d/consolefont</path> to a file found in
470	<path>/usr/share/consolefonts/</path> (without the <c>.psfu.gz</c>).
471	<c>lat9w-16</c> has the Euro symbol.
472	</p>
473
474	<pre caption="Setting the console font">
475	consolefont="lat9w-16"
476	</pre>
477
478	<p>
479	You should verify that <c>consolefont</c> is in the boot runlevel:
480	</p>
481
482	<pre caption="Verify the proper runlevel">
483	# <i>rc-update -v show \| grep consolefont</i>
484	</pre>
485
486	<p>
487	If no runlevel is displayed for <c>consolefont</c>, then add it to the proper level:
488	</p>
489
490	<pre caption="Add consolefont to boot">
491	# <i>rc-update add consolefont boot</i>
492	</pre>
493
494	</body>
495	</section>
496	</chapter>
497
498	<chapter>
499	<title>The Euro Symbol in X</title>
500	<section>
501	<title>Most Applications</title>
502	<body>
503
504	<p>
505	Getting the Euro symbol to work properly in X is a little bit tougher. The
506	first thing you should do is change the <c>fixed</c> and <c>variable</c>
507	definitions in <path>/usr/share/fonts/misc/fonts.alias</path> to end in
508	<c>iso8859-15</c> instead of <c>iso8859-1</c>.
509	</p>
510
511	<pre caption="Setting default X fonts">
512	fixed -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15
513	variable --helvetica-bold-r-normal---120----*-iso8859-15
514	</pre>
515
516	<p>
517	Some applications use their own font, and you will have to tell them separately
518	to use a font with the Euro symbol. You can do this at a user-specific level in
519	<path>.Xdefaults</path> (you can copy this file to <path>/etc/skel/</path> for
520	use by new users), or at a global level for any application with a resource file
521	in <path>/usr/share/X11/app-defaults/</path> (like xterm). In these files you
522	generally have to change an existing line, rather than adding a new one. To
523	change our xterm font, for instance:
524	</p>
525
526	<pre caption="Setting fonts for xterm">
527	<comment>(in your home directory)</comment>
528	$ <i>echo 'XTerm*font: fixed' >> .Xresources </i>
529	$ <i>xrdb -merge .Xresources</i>
530	</pre>
531
532	</body>
533	</section>
534	<section>
535	<title>The Euro symbol in (X)Emacs</title>
536	<body>
537
538	<p>
539	To use the Euro symbol in (X)Emacs, add the following to
540	<path>.Xdefaults</path>:
541	</p>
542
543	<pre caption="setting the font for emacs">
544	Emacs.default.attributeFont: --courier-medium-r----120-----iso8859-15
545	</pre>
546
547	<p>
548	For XEmacs (not plain Emacs), you have to do a little
549	more. In <path>/home/user/.xemacs/init.el</path>, add:
550	</p>
551
552	<pre caption="setting the font for xemacs">
553	(define-key global-map '(EuroSign) '[€])
554	</pre>
555
556	<note>
557	The symbol in the []s is the Euro symbol.
558	</note>
559
560	</body>
561	</section>
562	<section>
563	<title>LibreOffice</title>
564	<body>
565
566	<p>
567	The current stable <c>app-office/libreoffice</c> and
568	<c>app-office/libreoffice-bin</c> ebuilds support the <uri
569	link="#variables">LINGUAS variable</uri> for selecting installed GUI language
570	packs. To see the status of GUI translation, hyphenation, spell checking and
571	other localisations on your language, please refer to <uri
572	link="https://translations.documentfoundation.org/">LibreOffice translation web
573	site</uri>.
574	</p>
575
576	</body>
577	</section>
578	</chapter>
579
580	</guide>