UTF-8 help ?

[bron]

Can some kind soul enlighten me as to what I'm doing wrong? Or what more I need to do that I haven't done yet? I'm trying to run the 3.4rc1 on a gentoo linux system using gnome. I use the "curses" interface, i.e. I configure with:

     ./configure --with-no-install --disable-x11 --prefix=`pwd`

This all works great (kudos to the build team). I didn't realize UTF-8 was *required*, but ok, "locale -a" shows that I do have en_US.utf8 available. So I change both "LANG" and "GDM_LANG" from "C" to "en_US.utf8". Angband starts up ok, but the town looks like this:

Dwarf                                                                          
Rookie        ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????C?? 
Warrior       ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 
LEVEL      1  ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 
NXT       12  ??????????????????    ??????????????           ????????      ?????????????????????????????????????????????? 
AU       600  ??????????????????    ??????????????           ????????      ??????????????????        ???????????? 
              ??????????????????    ??????????????           ????????      ??????????????????        ???????????? 
STR:   18/30  ??????????????????    ??????????????           ???????? 8    ??????????????????1       ???????????? 
INT:       5  ??????????????????  6 ??????????????     5     ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 
WIS:      10  ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 
DEX:      16  ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 
CON:   18/40  ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 
CHR:       6  ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 
              ???????????? 4     ??????????????????      3 ??????????   2    ?????????????????????????????????????????? 
Cur AC     1  ????????????       ??????????????????        ??????????        ??????????  7       ???????????? 
HP   22/  22  ????????????       ??????????????????        ??????????        ??????????          ???????????? 
              ????????????       ??????????????????        ??????????        ??????????          ???????????? 
              ????????????????????????????????????????????        ??????????        ??????????          ??????@???? 
[**********]  ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????        ??????????          ???????????? 
              ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 
              ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Any suggestions about what I should try next? I pretty much reached the end of my knowledge of using UFT-8 when I set LANG.

[Magnate]

d_m is the guru on this but I think you also need to set TERM=xterm256. You obviously have ncursesw5 installed because otherwise the build would have failed, so it must just be an environment thing.

[bron]

Looking at /usr/share/terminfo I do not seem to have an entry for "xterm256". I tried both "xterm+256color" and "xterm-utf8" without success.

[d_m]

Hey bron,

There are a few things that could be going wrong:

1. Your font doesn't support unicode. I think this is unlikely but it's possible.
2. The version of ncurses you have installed is somehow incompatible.
3. Your terminal emulator doesn't like unicode either.

There are probably others too.

Could you please post:

1. Your OS (I'm assuming Linux)
2. Your distro (if applicable, I'm assuming Ubuntu/Debian)
3. Your architecture (x86? x86_64?)
4. How you installed ncurses, etc.
5. What terminal emulator you're using (xterm, gnome-terminal, linux console, etc)

We can probably get this working but it will be a little bit annoying I expect.

[bron]

I'm using gnome under Gentoo Linux. Your post sparked an idea or two and I played around with this a little bit more: if I create a new window by explicitly inovking xterm with LANG and XTERM_LOCALE both set to en_US.utf8 then it seems to work. That seems to indicate it's a gnome thing, or possibly a font thing.

I'm perfectly content to use xterm if you want to just drop it at this point, or I'll be happy to continue to pursue it with you if you want to try and figure it out for the next guy. If so, you should probably contact me directly with the email address from my profile, rather than bore the whole forum.