[dev][st] UTF-8 works on debian, but not on PopOS Ubuntu

From: Robert Winkler <robert.winkler_AT_bioprocess.org>
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2022 22:49:51 -0500

With the risk of annoying the experts (but lacking UTF-8 is a
show stopper for me, since I write a lot in Spanish and German..).

I compiled the same st code on Debian 11 (Bullseye) and Pop OS! (Ubuntu
21.10). On Debian, UTF-8 works fine, on Pop OS!, with the same keyboard,
it doesn't. In both cases, UTF-8 works in lxterminal.

The Liberation Mono (Regular) font, defined in `config.h` is installed.

LC_CTYPE is set correctly to "en_US.UTF-8"

The terminfo entries are added (tic -sx st.info)

There are no warnings or errors during the compilation:

~~~
root_AT_pop-os /h/r/d/n/s/st# make clean; make install
rm -f st st.o x.o st-0.8.5.tar.gz
c99 -I/usr/X11R6/include `pkg-config --cflags fontconfig` `pkg-config --cflags freetype2` -DVERSION=\"0.8.5\" -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600 -O1 -c st.c
c99 -I/usr/X11R6/include `pkg-config --cflags fontconfig` `pkg-config --cflags freetype2` -DVERSION=\"0.8.5\" -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600 -O1 -c x.c
c99 -o st st.o x.o -L/usr/X11R6/lib -lm -lrt -lX11 -lutil -lXft `pkg-config --libs fontconfig` `pkg-config --libs freetype2`
mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
cp -f st /usr/local/bin
chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/st
mkdir -p /usr/local/share/man/man1
sed "s/VERSION/0.8.5/g" < st.1 > /usr/local/share/man/man1/st.1
chmod 644 /usr/local/share/man/man1/st.1
tic -sx st.info
7 entries written to /etc/terminfo
Please see the README file regarding the terminfo entry of st.
~~~

If I call surf from st, the unicode characters work well. Isn't that an
indicator that the configuration cannot be that wrong?

Is there a systematic troubleshooting method?

Of course, I could re-install the computer with Debian and try again
compiling st, but there should be an easier way ...

Best regards,
Robert
Received on Tue Apr 26 2022 - 05:49:51 CEST