Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: YoYo Siska <yoyo@××××××.sk>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] /etc/locale vs /etc/env.d/02locale?
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:15:54
Message-Id: 20110616165624.GA16859@ksp.sk
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] /etc/locale vs /etc/env.d/02locale? by Mark Knecht
1 On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 09:23:16AM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
2 > On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Paul Hartman
3 > <paul.hartman+gentoo@×××××.com> wrote:
4 > > On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:45 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com> wrote:
5 > >> Is there a simple explanation concerning the difference between the
6 > >> two locales I have seen on Gentoo machines?
7 > >>
8 > >> 1) /etc/locale, as specified in the installation documents
9 > >>
10 > >> 2) /etc/env.d/02locale as has been discussed on the list recently
11 > >
12 > > I'm not near a Gentoo machine right now, but off the top of my head IIRC:
13 > >
14 > > /etc/locale.gen contains a list of locales to be compiled when glibc
15 > > is emerged. These will be available to be used.
16 > >
17 > > /etc/env.d/02locale specifies which of those locales you actually want
18 > > to use for the system-wide default (the LC variables)
19 >
20 > Thanks for the response Paul.
21 >
22 > Does that mean that the /etc/locale.gen is used only by glibc and not
23 > really by the system? If so, what is glibc doing with these beyond
24 > letting me system run programs?
25 >
26 > If 02locale specifies what the system is using, then should it be
27 > 02locale that's in the install documents vs off in an optional Gentoo
28 > Localization guide?
29 >
30 > Note that the /etc/locale.gen stuff is marked optional in the guide so
31 > presumably it isn't actually needed. All I've determined about it is
32 > that it reduces the amount of time emerge spends buildingglibc/gcc.
33
34 locale.gen is in the install docs, because it allows you to choose which
35 locales should be built, ie after emerging libc, which locales you can
36 choose from... if you don't modify it, you get a lot of usual locales
37 built...
38
39 /etc/env.d/02locale is used to actually choose which one of the built
40 ones will be used as the "default" locale for (almost) everything that
41 runs... I gues it might deserve a mention in the install guide...
42 though it actullly isn't any special file... the actuall locale is set
43 by setting an enviroment variable (LANG or the specific LC_...), you
44 could set it in your .bashrc / .bash_profile only for your user, or
45 anywhere where it would apply to most programs, ie /etc/profile ...
46 Gentoo has the mechanism, that anything that gets put into /etc/env.d is
47 then (through env-update, which you have certainly run from time to time
48 ;) merged together to /etc/profile.env, which is in turned sourced by
49 /etc/profile (and posibly other things) so that it is just logical to
50 put it there... but the actual name of the file doesn't really matter ;)
51
52
53 yoyo