From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Aug 25 02:59:00 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 D174A106567C for ; Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:59:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from alexanderchuranov@gmail.com) Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com (nf-out-0910.google.com [64.233.182.186]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 751608FC0A for ; Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:59:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from alexanderchuranov@gmail.com) Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id h3so749441nfh.33 for ; Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:58:59 -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=Hd/45f+ooIFUDeWPLpBHWkkIMRG11egWGSE31nkQHPY=; b=qnTbIGmzEOwmU/qgygmaYoIBx7EXHNSXTqrzo8Z7mXFNFoOQquHt9yjHyDUjkmUor9 jmtnd6jTKO1esgpDlhPsXr/y+KKx/C4+iml3KAZ1ZNtJQhHoVlNr2Kr8eUUQeYYZw87Z yfn4wM74S331ub54aOUf+mfse9TSmoo0rftA8= 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=c2CXYkIVKmO8q+1t/pXBGsqOx0IN2p/Xj4juvBvc9yyaLW8DOP0tYvpGzjGYEDR5xG aD6ywtkdh6Al7zUifvz3+ODKIqgBHnWUd2KM54SpzagOIdK3Ov6++yBT1hPZCn1mo8am ss7MzNL9DgEs5c7RYh3EWUxmXWkkkdNL9w5Ts= Received: by 10.210.72.14 with SMTP id u14mr5857740eba.177.1219633139334; Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:58:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.210.130.15 with HTTP; Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:58:59 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <3cb459ed0808241958v552eafejf7841f0f9993928e@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:58:59 +0400 From: "Alexander Churanov" To: "Tz-Huan Huang" In-Reply-To: <6a7033710808241239p1cbdc7adwd4f87814b428b10b@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <3cb459ed0808221700w335b0906g6901d8b8bec4dad9@mail.gmail.com> <200808241415.31812.mitchell@wyatt672earp.force9.co.uk> <6a7033710808241239p1cbdc7adwd4f87814b428b10b@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, Frank , freebsd-i18n@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 02:59:00 -0000 2008/8/24 Tz-Huan Huang > 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 > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-current@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" Tz-Huan, Working with Chinese text is the hard part of my solution (described in full in freebsd-current@freebsd.org). In brief it's about moving FreeBSD to UTF-8 completely and making syscons map UTF-8 to selected 8-bit charset for displaying (a failsafe solution). It seems that this makes syscons somewhat more usable for some people, but not for from East Asia, am I right? I was thinking of how to make working with Chinese filenames possible under syscons, but the help of a native speaker/writer would help much, because I know only basic facts about that matter. I see two alternatives of displaying unicode code points that do not fit into selected 8-bit display charset: 1) Substituting with some character, like '?'. This is very affordable solutiuon, but makes inconvenient working with files having names that do not fit into selected charset. 2) Substituting with encoded code point value like "#1234;". This is more complex solutuon, if correct baskspacing and things like that are required. I am not ready to implement it. In any case, it would be nice to have some "magic" implemented: if copying a text with substitued code points and then pasting it would case the original UTF-8 sequence to be inserted. For all folks I'd like to explain again that I'm not discussing correct rendering of non-latin scripts. It's not possible to render Devanagari in character mode. And approach that Linux console takes is partial. The cost of full solution is like X, freetype, freebidi and so on. Tz-Huan, could you comment on the proposed solution? From your point of view, are proposed changes in syscons useful? Again, this does not affect X, Firefox, etc, but would make possible to have the whole system using UTF-8 out of box. Alexander Churanov