On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 01:55:21PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode <nero...@gcc.gnu.org> was heard to say: > Aptitude appears to have some hardcoded dependencies on the locale. Given > this, > it really needs to force the locale before starting. I have to start it up > with LANG=C aptitude in order to keep the screen readable; otherwise I get > lots of nonsense characters. > > In the long run, it should probably be properly UNICODE-ized.
Like Jens said, we really need more explanation. Doubly so since aptitude uses wide characters internally and converts to/from the system locale when reading input and displaying text, and has done so for nearly five years. Which terminal are you using? If you start a new instance of your terminal from your terminal prompt, does it have the same problem? Be aware that with gnome-terminal, you need to pass --disable-factory for this to work. If I start a gnome-terminal in the C locale: $ LANG=C gnome-terminal --disable-factory then I get the attached output from aptitude (which thinks it's running in a UTF-8 locale). Please note the difference between the locale in which *the terminal* runs and the locale in which *the program inside the terminal* runs: some combinations of login scripts can conspire to cause your terminals to be started in a different locales from the shells inside those terminals. The easiest way to fix this is to export your locale settings in .xsession before you start up the session. Daniel
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