LatArCyrHeb-16 is the only font out there with decent utf8 coverage

I can imagine having a console-font which can display native Arabic
characters (and other languages?) better than the old font is
important for non-English speakers, but is it worth the trouble for
the rest of us?

For example :

On my computer, the text based 'hardware discovery utility' which
appears when installing e.g. a new network card, looks absolutely
unreadable. 

And normal usage (reading manpages ("man ls") on e.g. /dev/tty4 is
almost impossible right now), let alone some often used program
like the Midnight Commander.

For me this means use of this Red Hat Linux is _unsuitable_ for 
tasks the way I use it now.

I sincerely hope this gets fixed in the next beta.

vt2-vt6 being unusable doesn't really have anything to do with the font, AFAICT.
The bug is elsewhere.

Hmm.. it seems you're right. I changed the console-font in "/etc/sysconfig/i18n"
(replaced line SYSFONT="LatArCyrHeb-16" with SYSFONT="lat1u-16"), but the
problem still occurs.

ps.1 for me this problem (the 'unreadableness' of "man ls") also occurs on vt1.

ps.2 with the font "LatArCyrHeb-16" also the output of commands like "ls"
     generate 'Russian-like' characters. Selecting "lat1u-16" resolved this
     somewhat, although Midnight Commander still has weird borders.

FWIW, selecting US English as the system language creates same trouble.  vt1
seems OK, others are bad.  Problem is that any colored text is hosed.  regular
text, e.g. color of regular files in 'ls' is fine, while e.g. color of directory
items in 'ls /' looks vaguely like russian...  Wild guess: Perhaps color escape
codes are being interpreted somewhere as unicode?

I have the same issue with a mishmash of cyrillic and other typefaces on the
colored text in vt2-vt6 on a US English install.

I get the same problem with a "standard" everything install, english language.

A workaround is in the latest kbd package in rawhide.

Updating to kdb-1.06-20.i386.rpm still does not solve this problem. I couldn't
find a newer version. Rawhide was last updated on 13. July.

Which particular aspects of the problem are not solved for you with the new kbd?

No problem is solved at all. I still see lots of wrong characters instead of
german umlauts and the border lines of mc. Here is my complete
/etc/sysconfig/i18n which was created during limbo installation:

LANG="de_DE.UTF-8@euro"
SUPPORTED="en_US.UTF-8:en_US:en:de_DE.UTF-8@euro:de_DE:de_DE.UTF-8:de"
SYSFONT="LatArCyrHeb-16"

What version of slang, newt, and mc do you have installed?

I've installed the packages that came with the limbo beta release:

slang-1.4.5-7
slang-devel-1.4.5-7
compat-slang-1.4.5-2

newt-0.50.39-1
newt-devel-0.50.39-1

mc-4.5.55-7

Installing the latest slang and mc packages from rawhide (1.4.5-10, and
4.5.55-10) should resolve some of the issues you're seeing in MC. The latest
rawhide initscripts should avoid changes in things like the [ OK ] labels at
boot up.

(The main issue is that the initial bugreport actually refers to various
separate issues.)

Sorry, but I still see the same problems after updating to:

initscripts-6.85-1
slang-devel-1.4.5-10
slang-1.4.5-10
mc-4.5.55-9 (version -10 is not yet available via rawhide)

Even if mc will be ok in version -10, all german initscript messages that
contain german umlauts are displayed wrong.

mc borders are now ok in Gnome Terminal (mc-4.5.55-10), but still broken on the
console

I think I'm having similar problems.  After a default "English" install.  Lots
of fuzzy characters and the font type seems to be switching back and forth for
different applications and scripts.  Especially at boot-up.

Using 'setfont' without any parameters seems to reset the conslole properly for
the user who's logged in -- but for that login session only.  As soon as I
logout, the console fonts revert.

With a current tree for me, and LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, mc borders appear fine on the
console.

Some of the issue was with the @euro in the locale; this was fixed in
initscripts-6.88-1. (And anaconda no longer writes @euro anyway.)

Indeed, confirmed for Limbo2. The borders are now correct on the console, but
german umlauts in mc's menus are still broken. Each umlaut shows up as two
completely different characters.

Confirmed. Oddly, thje umlaut in Men| is ok, while the one in the menus
themselves isn't. I presume this is something odd with MC itself.

cc'ing jakub

Strangely I still get a mess out of mc despite Limbo2 and updates to it:

http://www.vendomar.ee/~ivo/mc_bordermess.png

If this is any help then output of env&set:

[IS@haskaa IS]$ env
KDE_MULTIHEAD=false
SSH_AGENT_PID=1321
HOSTNAME=haskaa
PVM_RSH=/usr/bin/rsh
TERM=xterm
SHELL=/bin/bash
HISTSIZE=1000
GTK_RC_FILES=/etc/gtk/gtkrc:/home/IS/.gtkrc:/home/IS/.gtkrc-kde
GS_LIB=/home/IS/.kde/share/fonts
QTDIR=/usr/lib/qt-3.0.5
USER=IS
LS_COLORS=no=00:fi=00:di=00;34:ln=00;36:pi=40;33:so=00;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=01;05;37;41:mi=01;05;37;41:ex=00;32:*.cmd=00;32:*.exe=00;32:*.com=00;32:*.btm=00;32:*.bat=00;32:*.sh=00;32:*.csh=00;32:*.tar=00;31:*.tgz=00;31:*.arj=00;31:*.taz=00;31:*.lzh=00;31:*.zip=00;31:*.z=00;31:*.Z=00;31:*.gz=00;31:*.bz2=00;31:*.bz=00;31:*.tz=00;31:*.rpm=00;31:*.cpio=00;31:*.jpg=00;35:*.gif=00;35:*.bmp=00;35:*.xbm=00;35:*.xpm=00;35:*.png=00;35:*.tif=00;35:
GDK_USE_XFT=1
PVM_ROOT=/usr/share/pvm3
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-XXMDxwPo/agent.1301
SESSION_MANAGER=local/haskaa:/tmp/.ICE-unix/1390
KONSOLE_DCOP=DCOPRef(konsole-1502,konsole)
MAIL=/var/spool/mail/IS
PATH=/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/IS/bin
KONSOLE_DCOP_SESSION=DCOPRef(konsole-1502,session-1)
INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc
PWD=/home/IS
XMODIFIERS=@im=none
LANG=en_US
LAMHELPFILE=/etc/lam/lam-helpfile
SSH_ASKPASS=/usr/libexec/openssh/gnome-ssh-askpass
SHLVL=4
HOME=/home/IS
XPVM_ROOT=/usr/share/pvm3/xpvm
LOGNAME=IS
LESSOPEN=|/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh %s
DISPLAY=:0.0
COLORTERM=
XAUTHORITY=/home/IS/.Xauthority
_=/bin/env
OLDPWD=/home/IS
[IS@haskaa IS]$ set
BASH=/bin/bash
BASH_VERSINFO=([0]="2" [1]="05b" [2]="0" [3]="1" [4]="release"
[5]="i686-pc-linux-gnu")
BASH_VERSION='2.05b.0(1)-release'
CHARSET=8859-1
COLORS=/etc/DIR_COLORS.xterm
COLORTERM=
COLUMNS=70
DIRSTACK=()
DISPLAY=:0.0
EUID=500
GDK_USE_XFT=1
GROUPS=()
GS_LIB=/home/IS/.kde/share/fonts
GTK_RC_FILES=/etc/gtk/gtkrc:/home/IS/.gtkrc:/home/IS/.gtkrc-kde
HISTFILE=/home/IS/.bash_history
HISTFILESIZE=1000
HISTSIZE=1000
HOME=/home/IS
HOSTNAME=haskaa
HOSTTYPE=i686
IFS=$' \t\n'
INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc
KDE_MULTIHEAD=false
KONSOLE_DCOP='DCOPRef(konsole-1502,konsole)'
KONSOLE_DCOP_SESSION='DCOPRef(konsole-1502,session-1)'
LAMHELPFILE=/etc/lam/lam-helpfile
LANG=en_US
LESSOPEN='|/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh %s'
LINES=22
LOGNAME=IS
LS_COLORS='no=00:fi=00:di=00;34:ln=00;36:pi=40;33:so=00;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=01;05;37;41:mi=01;05;37;41:ex=00;32:*.cmd=00;32:*.exe=00;32:*.com=00;32:*.btm=00;32:*.bat=00;32:*.sh=00;32:*.csh=00;32:*.tar=00;31:*.tgz=00;31:*.arj=00;31:*.taz=00;31:*.lzh=00;31:*.zip=00;31:*.z=00;31:*.Z=00;31:*.gz=00;31:*.bz2=00;31:*.bz=00;31:*.tz=00;31:*.rpm=00;31:*.cpio=00;31:*.jpg=00;35:*.gif=00;35:*.bmp=00;35:*.xbm=00;35:*.xpm=00;35:*.png=00;35:*.tif=00;35:'
MACHTYPE=i686-pc-linux-gnu
MAIL=/var/spool/mail/IS
MAILCHECK=60
OLDPWD=/home/IS
OPTERR=1
OPTIND=1
OSTYPE=linux-gnu
PATH=/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/IS/bin
PIPESTATUS=([0]="0")
PPID=1502
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/$HOME/~}\007"'
PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '
PS2='> '
PS4='+ '
PVM_ROOT=/usr/share/pvm3
PVM_RSH=/usr/bin/rsh
PWD=/home/IS
QTDIR=/usr/lib/qt-3.0.5
SESSION_MANAGER=local/haskaa:/tmp/.ICE-unix/1390
SHELL=/bin/bash
SHELLOPTS=braceexpand:emacs:hashall:histexpand:history:interactive-comments:monitor
SHLVL=4
SSH_AGENT_PID=1321
SSH_ASKPASS=/usr/libexec/openssh/gnome-ssh-askpass
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-XXMDxwPo/agent.1301
SUPPORTED=en_US:en:et_EE:et
TERM=xterm
UID=500
USER=IS
XAUTHORITY=/home/IS/.Xauthority
XMODIFIERS=@im=none
XPVM_ROOT=/usr/share/pvm3/xpvm
_=env
i=/etc/profile.d/xpvm.sh
langfile=/home/IS/.i18n
mc ()
{
    mkdir -p $HOME/.mc/tmp 2>/dev/null;
    chmod 700 $HOME/.mc/tmp;
    MC=$HOME/.mc/tmp/mc-$$;
    /usr/bin/mc -P "$@" >"$MC";
    cd "`cat $MC`";
    /bin/rm -f "$MC";
    unset MC
}
[IS@haskaa IS]$

ivo I think you are seeing a konsole problem that is supposed to be fixed in
newer Qt/kdebase, which is separate from the mc issue on the linux console. i.e. 
konsole != console. ;-)

mc on console is a mess, too: all horizontal lines are 'D', vertical lines are
subscript '3'.

The german umlauts in mc's menus are still broken in (Null) either on the
console but also in gnome-terminal. At least mcedit seems to work now...

I noticed too that "mc" is still not working correctly in KDE's Konsole or a
virtual console in Red Hat Linux 'null'.

The only way "mc" works correctly is by starting Midnight Commander with
"mc -a".

*** Bug 71954 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

added a fix for german umlauts and tested in several languages on console,
konsole and gnome-terminal.
looks almost ok now, some minor glitches p.e. with LANG=cs_CZ.UTF-8 are still
there.

slang-1.4.5-11
slang-devel-1.4.5-11
newt-0.51.0-1
newt-devel-0.51.0-1
mc-4.5.55-12
kbd-1.06-21
initscripts-6.90-1

Looks a lot better after upgrading to the above mentioned packages, but some
german umlauts are still not correct:
Befehl --> Lvschen r|ckgangig
Optionen --> Nachfragen
Optionen --> Tasten lernen (no umlaut problem, but the text is too wide for the
dialog box)

Some umlauts in menu "Sortierung" are also broken.

Things are looking pretty good with mc-4.5.55-12.  Please reopen if there are
still outstanding issues.

As stated above I've already updated to mc-4.55-12 and there are still some
issues. Please read my former comment again.

FWIW, mc has huge problems in utf-8 in most areas (try LC_ALL=cs_CZ.utf8):
* when column headings contain multi-byte characters, the headins don't line up
  with the columns below
* in full view, dates are drawn wrong (try to move the "cursor" up and down a few  
  times, the dates contain multibyte characters, mc thinks that they are long and
  doesn't draw enough of them
* try to view/edit an utf-8 file (/usr/share/comps/comps.xml, search for xml:lang)

OTOH, these are arguably too massive changes for RH to do when the upstream
package clearly doesn't support utf-8. Still, it would be nice to have.

Most issues with UTF-8 should be fixed with the latest patches.
Closing RAWHIDE.