Marc Waeckerlin
Wouldn't it be the best solution, to migrate the whole Linux and all applications to UTF-8? I think UTF-8 is the most intelligent coding system, since it is efficient for english, only requires two bytes for umlauts in european languages and still allows any language to coexist.
Yes, I believe as well that migrating to UTF-8 as fast as possible is a good idea. It makes multilingual use of Linux much easier. I've tried to collect some reasons for switching to UTF-8 here: http://www.suse.de/~mfabian/suse-cjk/unicode.html
So, I'd suggest that SuSE delivers all locales with *.UTF-8 per default.
All locales are available with *.UTF-8 in SuSE Linux. I.e. you set a
UTF-8 locale for any language which is supported at all on SuSE Linux.
But UTF-8 is not yet the default when you install a SuSE Linux 8.2
from scratch. If you install in Japanese, you will get ja_JP.eucJP by
default, if you install in German you will get de_DE@euro by default.
If you prefer UTF-8 you have to select this yourself by editing
/etc/sysconfig/language after installation. See also
http://www.suse.de/~mfabian/suse-cjk/unicode-switch.html
I hope UTF-8 locales will soon be made the default after a fresh
installation of SuSE Linux. But it's not easy to convince people that
this is useful and will help users of all languages to get better
support for their native language in the long run.
--
Mike Fabian