[gentoo-user] Re: /etc/locale vs /etc/env.d/02locale?

[Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de>]

On 06/16/2011 07:23 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Paul Hartman
> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:45 AM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> Is there a simple explanation concerning the difference between the
>>> two locales I have seen on Gentoo machines?
>>>
>>> 1) /etc/locale, as specified in the installation documents
>>>
>>> 2) /etc/env.d/02locale as has been discussed on the list recently
>>
>> I'm not near a Gentoo machine right now, but off the top of my head IIRC:
>>
>> /etc/locale.gen contains a list of locales to be compiled when glibc
>> is emerged. These will be available to be used.
>>
>> /etc/env.d/02locale specifies which of those locales you actually want
>> to use for the system-wide default (the LC variables)
>
> Thanks for the response Paul.
>
> Does that mean that the /etc/locale.gen is used only by glibc and not
> really by the system? If so, what is glibc doing with these beyond
> letting me system run programs?

It allows you to have locales to use in /etc/env.d/02locale ;-)  If you 
want to set LANG=en_US.UTF-8 in 02locale, you of course need the files 
for that specific locale/encoding.  To get them, you need to write 
"en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8" in locale.gen.  Not sure why you're not getting the 
comments in your locale.gen, but here there are, at the top of the file:

# /etc/locale.gen: list all of the locales you want to have on your system
#
# The format of each line:
# <locale> <charmap>
#
# Where <locale> is a locale located in /usr/share/i18n/locales/ and
# where <charmap> is a charmap located in /usr/share/i18n/charmaps/.
#
# All blank lines and lines starting with # are ignored.
#
# For the default list of supported combinations, see the file:
# /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED
#
# Whenever glibc is emerged, the locales listed here will be automatically
# rebuilt for you.  After updating this file, you can simply run 
`locale-gen`
# yourself instead of re-emerging glibc.