Unicode and UTF-8 on the text console

Currently the Linux text console does support UTF-8 but only only supports fonts with up to 512 glyphs. I.e. you can use the native UTF-8 support of the Linux console for European languages but not for CJK.

To be able to use CJK on the Linux console you need additional programs which support bigger fonts and double width characters. For example the frame buffer console terminal emulator fbiterm (see section 9.2).

To switch the Linux console to Unicode mode you can use the script /usr/bin/unicode_start, to get back to 8-bit mode there is the script /usr/bin/unicode_stop.

In order to have the Linux consoles automatically initialized into UTF-8 mode or 8-bit mode by default install the update for the ``kbd'' package for SuSE Linux 8.2 available here:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/mfabian/8.2-i586/kbd-1.06-236.i586.rpm
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/mfabian/8.2-src/kbd-1.06-236.src.rpm

The new /etc/init.d/kbd script from that package will check whether the system wide default settings according to /etc/sysconfig/language result in a effective default value of LC_CTYPE using UTF-8 or not and set up the console appropriately.

You also should update to the ``sysvinit'' packages available here:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/mfabian/8.2-i586/sysvinit-2.82-287.i586.rpm
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/mfabian/8.2-src/sysvinit-2.82-287.src.rpm

There was a bug in the mingetty program in that package which caused a switch to 8-bit mode each time one did log in to the first Linux console.

2005-03-09