From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Aug 25 13:21:39 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 10F881065679 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:21:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from alexanderchuranov@gmail.com) Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com (ug-out-1314.google.com [66.249.92.170]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 583608FC1F for ; Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:21:38 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from alexanderchuranov@gmail.com) Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id o4so490934uge.39 for ; Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:21:36 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to :subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; bh=fJSE/hx9gpwV8NwXFQ+WuvGTemmRTnW6nVaf49cfApc=; b=w89zSKgxkLSeYlpq6EAMcFKraFh3hgrjfL6GUDZ29DbRdKWv8kNoHG6jC/w+14eh86 lNdt33Mf8fSG81iXmX9ovablvbfXrCxPhTYy3aDC30RCB4Wa7f/BCLgmXFcJhocaDdji PXczL2LQWGRaUr4TcyYgeJwUYDus/9Jp4tz4c= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:references; b=hdgR0xFpucww7xc00p7D7VGzT+4npyw9zjQeLKwU8Zp1py8NJy1YCCQf9hU50fiJew dctWbglw2VRWcgx6fTAp2SF6IxKV9hv4m6SjlffXp9NaSZ9CAtMC8whZwiz3sk3Jp3CV pjn83SesyfWInzaz8PgXciJzTTJvO7g5a87v8= Received: by 10.210.135.18 with SMTP id i18mr6615030ebd.122.1219670496752; Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:21:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.210.130.15 with HTTP; Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:21:36 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <3cb459ed0808250621s28a1b825u1cc16939951bb157@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:21:36 +0400 From: "Alexander Churanov" To: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Svavar_L=FAthersson?=" In-Reply-To: <48B28B8D.9030305@kjarrval.is> MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <3cb459ed0808221700w335b0906g6901d8b8bec4dad9@mail.gmail.com> <200808241415.31812.mitchell@wyatt672earp.force9.co.uk> <6a7033710808241239p1cbdc7adwd4f87814b428b10b@mail.gmail.com> <3cb459ed0808241958v552eafejf7841f0f9993928e@mail.gmail.com> <48B28B8D.9030305@kjarrval.is> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Unicode-based FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:21:39 -0000 2008/8/25 Svavar L=FAthersson > I am not an expert in Unicode but I am Icelandic and need to manage > filenames which have some "special characters" in the Latin alphabet. Lik= e > =E1, =F0, =E9, =ED, =F3, =FA, =FE, =E6 and =F6. Even though these charact= ers are defined in > ISO-8859-1 and -15, they cannot be directly typed (by default) in the > console in FreeBSD (also applies to Debian Linux). > > On to my point... My suggestion is to go as far as possible with the > proposed solution. There should be UTF-32, UTF-16 and UTF-8 support and t= he > first-mentioned should be the primary charset with the others as fallback= . I > think only enabling UTF-8 is not going far enough and therefore I do not > support Churanov's ideas to obscure non-displayable characters with other > symbols. > Svavar, You have to type "special characters" that are high-bit characters of ISO-8859-1 and -15. I have to type cyrillic characters that are high-bit characters of koi8-r. But I am able to do this. Did you try "keymap" and "scrnmap" settings of "rc.conf"? I am not sure, but your issue looks like misconfiguration. Then, about UTFs. All three forms encode THE SAME set of code points and from user's perspective there is no great difference. However, UTF-8 is interoperable with ASCII and this fact makes many old applications work without modification. I've already posted information about my experience o= f using vipw with UTF-8 on FreeBSD 6.2 having LANG=3Dru_RU.KOI8-R to the list= . The actual drawback of my solution is that a person will not be able to rea= d and type Icelandic and Russian text simultaneously in syscons console. And that ideas of obscuring output are attempts to provide some way to manipulate files with, say, russian names on a PC tuned for Icelandic text. Please note, that I DO NOT propagandize syscons character mode as a device for working correctly with multilingual texts. For some scripts, for example, Devanagari, syscons will NEVER work uless it is extended to something like X, freetype, freebidi and many other tools working together. Please, note that you can start working in true multilingual environment right now, using, for example, X+KDE (kate and konsole) and switching them to UTF-8. This will work. What I am trying to discuss is just making syscons working correctly if the whole system is switched to UTF-8. This will not affect X and KDE, but standard syscons FreeBSD console will fail to work correctly. Mainly the ideas are: 1) Make switching everything to UTF-8 possible. 2) Either map non-ASCII characters to 128-chars subset of full unicode rang= e Or encode them to sequences of ASCII chars. Or mix these approaches. To my mind this should result in the following abilities: 1) To work in graphical environment without restrictions. (this is what you have right now) 2) To read and type some filenames (that contains only characters that are mappable to 8-bit font) in a natural way. (this is also possible now, but with 8-bit LANG, not UTF-8) 3) To read and type filenames that contain characters that do not fit in current 8-bit screenmap, possibly in an unnatural way. The later would help if you are in Iceland and see a Chinese filename. I want engineers that do techical support of systems to be able to delete or rename such files even in single-user mode. I think that typing something like "#1234;#4321;" instead of actual hieroglyph is affordable price. I'm just trying to be realistic and provide doable solution. I leave plans of rewriting every bit of software to others. And I even think that latter is not required, since syscons console is probably not heavily used now. Alexander Churanov