23.5 Localizing FreeBSD to Specific Languages

23.5.1.1 Locale Setup

Put the following lines into your ~/.login_conf file:

me:My Account:\
    :charset=KOI8-R:\
    :lang=ru_RU.KOI8-R:

See earlier in this chapter for examples of setting up the locale.

23.5.1.2 Console Setup

• Add the following line to your /etc/rc.conf file:

  mousechar_start=3
  

• Also, use following settings in /etc/rc.conf:

  keymap="ru.koi8-r"
  scrnmap="koi8-r2cp866"
  font8x16="cp866b-8x16"
  font8x14="cp866-8x14"
  font8x8="cp866-8x8"
  

• For each ttyv* entry in /etc/ttys, use cons25r as the terminal type.

See earlier in this chapter for examples of setting up the console.

23.5.1.3 Printer Setup

Since most printers with Russian characters come with hardware code page CP866, a special output filter is needed to convert from KOI8-R to CP866. Such a filter is installed by default as /usr/libexec/lpr/ru/koi2alt. A Russian printer /etc/printcap entry should look like:

lp|Russian local line printer:\
    :sh:of=/usr/libexec/lpr/ru/koi2alt:\
    :lp=/dev/lpt0:sd=/var/spool/output/lpd:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:

See printcap(5) for a detailed description.

23.5.1.4 MS-DOS® FS and Russian Filenames

The following example fstab(5) entry enables support for Russian filenames in mounted MS-DOS® filesystems:

/dev/ad0s2      /dos/c  msdos   rw,-Wkoi2dos,-Lru_RU.KOI8-R 0 0

The option -L selects the locale name used, and -W sets the character conversion table. To use the -W option, be sure to mount /usr before the MS-DOS partition because the conversion tables are located in /usr/libdata/msdosfs. For more information, see the mount_msdosfs(8) manual page.

23.5.1.5 X11 Setup

1. Do non-X locale setup first as described.

2. If you use Xorg, install x11-fonts/xorg-fonts-cyrillic package.

   Check the "Files" section in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. The following line must be added before any other FontPath entries:

   FontPath   "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
   

   Note: See ports for more cyrillic fonts.

3. To activate a Russian keyboard, add the following to the "Keyboard" section of your xorg.conf file:

   Option "XkbLayout"   "us,ru"
   Option "XkbOptions"  "grp:toggle"
   

   Also make sure that XkbDisable is turned off (commented out) there.

   For grp:toggle the RUS/LAT switch will be Right Alt, for grp:ctrl_shift_toggle switch will be Ctrl+Shift. For grp:caps_toggle the RUS/LAT switch will be CapsLock. The old CapsLock function is still available via Shift+CapsLock (in LAT mode only). grp:caps_toggle does not work in Xorg for unknown reason.

   If you have “Windows®” keys on your keyboard, and notice that some non-alphabetical keys are mapped incorrectly in RUS mode, add the following line in your xorg.conf file:

   Option "XkbVariant" ",winkeys"
   

   Note: The Russian XKB keyboard may not work with non-localized applications.