#820213 console-setup: The non breaking space has a bad symbol with fr_FR charset

Package:
console-setup
Source:
console-setup
Submitter:
rpnpif
Date:
2026-08-14 08:11:02 UTC
Severity:
minor
#820213#5
Date:
2016-04-06 17:02:03 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

In fr_FR.UTF-8 charset, Lat15 for console-setup or also guest charset, console-setup change the non-breaking space in the boot message of systemd to garbage character.

The first line of message on the boot screen says about that:
/dev/sda1: clean ...
that get in fr_FR:
/dev/sda1: propre ...
This first line works fine but with other partitions, it is displayed:
/dev/sda2 : propre ...
/dev/sda3 : propre ...
etc.
Here, no problem with the space and colon couple because it is a French norm.

When the stage of the change of the font choosen by console-setup occurs, it is displayed as:
/dev/sda2€: propre ...
/dev/sda3€: propre ...

The € character instead of the non-breaking space may be replaced by another strange character following another font applied by console-setup.

Expected results :
Whatever the font, a non-breaking space should be displayed in fr_FR before this colon or at least a simple space.
The non-breaking space is better.
#820213#10
Date:
2016-04-06 22:06:10 UTC
From:
To:
Unfortunately, at the moment I have no idea what might have caused this
strange behaviour.  Moreover, I am unable to reproduce it.  I booted my
system with French locale and fsck displayed the non-break space
correctly.

Could you check the following two things.  First, is everything correct
after the system has booted?  Try for example on the text console as
root the following commands:

  dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test.hdi count=100000
  mkfs.ext4 /tmp/test.hdi
  fsck.ext4 /tmp/test.hdi

Second, when do the following messages occur?

Before the framebuffer is activated (big letters) or afterwards (small
letters)?  Can you observe the exact time when console-setup modifies
the font (not the size of the letters but their shape)?

On the console 'non-breaking space' = 'space'.

Anton Zinoviev
#820213#15
Date:
2016-04-06 22:14:09 UTC
From:
To:
Ah, it just occured to me that maybe you have observed the following:

1. fsck displays its messages with correct non-break space.

2. A second later console-setup changes the font and only then the
   non-break space is replaced with "strange" symbol.

Am I right?  If so, then I think I understand the cause of the problem
and the possible fixes.

Anton Zinoviev
#820213#20
Date:
2026-08-14 08:09:26 UTC
From:
To:
I think that this bug was fixed.