From owner-freebsd-i18n@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Aug 24 20:12:17 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-i18n@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2D381106566C for ; Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:12:17 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tzhuan@gmail.com) Received: from fg-out-1718.google.com (fg-out-1718.google.com [72.14.220.155]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BF6848FC14 for ; Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:12:16 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tzhuan@gmail.com) Received: by fg-out-1718.google.com with SMTP id l26so1186435fgb.35 for ; Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:12:15 -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:sender :to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references :x-google-sender-auth; bh=2cz5olmQ079e336uVzfNJ26pn+XuEemt3bzg5ktqeSk=; b=VVGXFif+R4qBaZBGwjAdpPrARHdrUsNuTGT2gT0ckuiLtDgp5lEqijxBgmwE/uVBNK tDg4js1k4WNYgTfDwGOdN0kKsIb7GaHS6+lNpApYHQbg2P8Db+eKDO7x2oMiupkpMVrP txbzIydtrpc7G2tR6mSXYbcUOglMUi7veCbgs= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:sender:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition :references:x-google-sender-auth; b=xpw3cTAgaA3vx8ZAWtp1WlavD/m4c8FbeRxC4COSdm3f0O336pccCU9tZbUBNWUx09 9O+tGhq3Qvk9WGt8J5zAaGfTlCH6LwbLIm5bXG9QeGYffNvVjqSmDfoQb5f0o/zXFiZK DXWYx4tK11Wto/8ameNJ9QEFcWjWOkBnRsu3Y= Received: by 10.86.59.18 with SMTP id h18mr2744715fga.4.1219606740247; Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:39:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.86.3.2 with HTTP; Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:39:00 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <6a7033710808241239p1cbdc7adwd4f87814b428b10b@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:39:00 +0800 From: "Tz-Huan Huang" Sender: tzhuan@gmail.com To: Frank In-Reply-To: <200808241415.31812.mitchell@wyatt672earp.force9.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <3cb459ed0808221700w335b0906g6901d8b8bec4dad9@mail.gmail.com> <200808241415.31812.mitchell@wyatt672earp.force9.co.uk> X-Google-Sender-Auth: 01f8df7b51d19aa2 Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-i18n@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Unicode-based FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-i18n@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: FreeBSD Internationalization Effort List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:12:17 -0000 On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 9:15 PM, Frank wrote: > I've heard that Japanese and Chinese users prefer their own coding systems, > because the Unicode Character Set in these languages is limited. Korean also > has Combining Characters, and UTF-8 comes in 3 different Levels depending on > its ability to cope with this. Maybe you need some contacts in other > countries. This is not true -- at least for Chinese. I'm a Chinese living in Taiwan and I am probably sure that Unicode is larger than any other Chinese character sets (including traditional and simplified Chinese). The UTF-8 support in FreeBSD/Xorg is good enough for me. I can read/type all Unicode 4.0 characters (including CJKV extension A/B) in Firefox or any gtk/qt programs if I have the needed font; I can produce documents with any Unicode characters by LaTeX+CJK package. It's much better than MS IE and Word because IE and Word only support Unicode 2.0 (or maybe 3.0, I'm not so sure). There are two reasons to use any character sets other than UTF-8: 1. compatibility for old programs/services or other OS. 2. the old man wrote the document when Unicode was not so popular and newbies read the old document. UTF-8 is more and more popular in Chinese, at least in Taiwan. Almost everything works well in my daily jobs (of course under the X). The major missing part is the kiconv UTF-8 support -- currently the kiconv doesn't support more than two bytes character conversion so there is no UTF-8 support for Chinese (most Chinese characters are 3-byte or more). I should mount msdosfs/cd9660 in zh_TW.Big5 and convert the filename to UTF-8 by lint or screen. IMHO, If I need Chinese support, I'll go into X. I have no reason to use Chinese under console even if I can read/type in Chinese. I prefer Firefox rather than w3m or links. :-) Regards, Tz-Huan