* Florian v. Savigny (lorian@fsavigny.de) [27.02.09 18:30]:
> 
> Dear listmates,
> 
> (I did try to use a more specific mailing list, and tried
> gentoo-admin, but it seems there's nobody around.)
> 
> I recently updated my kernel from 2.6.17 to 2.6.27, and it seems that
> the new kernel causes the encoding of the console to behave weird: 
> 
> I used to use the default Unix encoding, i.e. iso-8859-1, because this
> was fine for German (now I want to stick to it because I have so much
> legacy material in that encoding).  Now, when I type a string with
> Non-ASCII characters on the commandline, it looks normal, but when I
> redirect this to a file, the file command identifies the contents of
> that file (correctly, it seems to me) as UTF-8. When I boot the old
> kernel (which I kept), the same procedure results in a file identified
> as iso-8859-1 (and with accordingly fewer bytes). Here are the
> contents (the same sentence):
> 
> Kernel 2.6.17:
> 
> "Ich kann es au��erdem nicht ��ndern"
> 
> Kernel 2.6.27:
> 
> "Ich kann es außerdem nicht ändern"
> 
> I grepped the .config files for any options that might have a bearing
> on this. The only difference I found was in the first of these four
> lines:
> 
> linux-2.6.17:
> 
> # CONFIG_NLS_ASCII is not set
> CONFIG_NLS_ISO8859_1=y
> CONFIG_NLS_ISO8859_15=y
> CONFIG_NLS_UTF8=y
> 
> linux-2.6.27
> 
> CONFIG_NLS_ASCII=y
> CONFIG_NLS_ISO8859_1=y
> CONFIG_NLS_ISO8859_15=y
> CONFIG_NLS_UTF8=y
> 
> So I set $CONFIG_NLS_ASCII differently for the new kernel. But as far
> as I understand, these refer to the handling of file names (it's in
> the section "file systems"), and only specify what is supported, so I
> don't see how this could have an effect on console encoding.
> 
> The only thing I am dead sure about is that the kernel itself must be
> the culprit, because when I boot the old kernel, this behaviour goes
> away. There is absolutely no change in the system otherwise. (The
> $UNICODE variable in /etc/rc.conf is set to "no".)
> 
> Can anyone give me a hint where to look what I have messed up? Emacs,
> which I sometimes like to use on the console, is particularly
> uncomfortable with this, and I seem to write confusing e-mails.
> 
> Many thanks in advance for any hint,
> 
> Florian
> 
> 

Genrally speaking: switch to utf-8! There are many tools which can 
convert your files automatically.

To your issue:

Well, there still is /etc/conf.d/consolefont which could mess up things. 
Or the locales...

But the different bahavior of the two kernels is strange...
Is CONFIG_NLS_DEFAULT different of the two kernels? Maybe it's also 
related to the kernel build in keymap...

Maybe you should try the gentoo-user-de list, maybe there is someone 
whon ran into the same problem...

HTH
Sebastian

-- 
 " Religion ist das Opium des Volkes. "      Karl Marx

 SEB@STI@N GÜNTHER         mailto:samson@guenther-roetgen.de