Note the following internationalization and localization changes:
Language and locale support – Oracle Solaris 11 supports over 200 locales. By default, only a core set of locales is installed on the system. Core locales typically provide better support at the level of localized messages than locales that are available for additional installation. Specific Oracle Solaris components, such as the installers or Package Manager, are localized for core locales only. Note that localized messages for third-party software, for example GNOME and Firefox, include additional locales.
The core set of locales support the following languages:
Chinese – Simplified (zh_CN.UTF-8)
Chinese – Traditional (zh_TW.UTF-8)
English (en_US.UTF-8)
French (fr_FR.UTF-8)
German (de_DE.UTF-8)
Italian (it_IT.UTF-8)
Japanese (ja_JP.UTF-8)
Korean (ko_KR.UTF-8)
Portuguese – Brazilian (pt_BR.UTF-8)
Spanish (es_ES.UTF-8)
Other notable core locale changes include the addition of the Portuguese – Brazilian locale and the removal of the Swedish locale.
Other locale changes – Starting with Oracle Solaris 11.1, the following locale changes are implemented:
Japanese (ja_JP.UTF-8@cldr) locale – This locale is a new variant of the Japanese UTF-8 locale (ja_JP.UTF-8) that conforms to the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) for the Japanese locale. The locale is an optional component that is installable from the system/locale/extra package.
Locale data for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Thai UTF-8 locales has been updated to support Unicode 6.0.
Language and locale packaging – In Oracle Solaris 10, optional package components, such as documentation, localization, and debug files are split into separate packages. However, in Oracle Solaris 11, IPS enables you to store these various package components in the same package by using special tags that are called facets. Facets simplify the packaging process, as well as minimize disk space usage. Locale facets are used to mark files or actions that are language or locale-specific.
Display the status of the facets on a system as follows:
$ pkg facet
Starting with Oracle Solaris 11.2, you can use the nlsadm command to administer locales in place of the localeadm command that is used in Oracle Solaris 10. The nlsadm command provides a consolidated and convenient way to administer national language properties.
For example, you would use the following command to install the Danish locale and any available translations:
# nlsadm install-locale da_DK.UTF-8
# pkg install nls-administration
Although the nlsadm command is the suggested method for installing and uninstalling locales in Oracle Solaris 11.2, you can still install and remove locales by modifying the locale facets directly, as shown in the following example:
# pkg change-facet facet.locale.da=True # pkg change-facet facet.locale.da_DK=True
Setting a system's default locale – In Oracle Solaris 10, the default system locale is configured in the /etc/default/init file. Starting with Oracle Solaris 11, this file is obsoleted and the configuration has moved to the corresponding properties of the svc:/system/environment:init SMF service. See Locale, Timezone, and Console Keymap Configuration Changes.
Short form locales – Oracle Solaris 10 supports a number of short form locale names that do not follow the language_country.encoding[ @modifier] format, for example, ja,de, de_AT, and so on. These locales are not present in Oracle Solaris 11 in their original form, only as aliases to fully qualified locale names through the locale_alias mechanism. Starting with Oracle Solaris 11, you should use fully qualified locale names. Or, if possible, use UTF-8 locales. See the end-of-feature announcements at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/systems/end-of-notices/eonsolaris11-392732.html.
Locale aliasing – Locale aliases are new. Locale name aliases are accepted and mapped to the corresponding canonical locale names. For example, the de locale is mapped to the canonical de_DE.ISO8859-1 locale. For all of the locale name mappings, see the locale_alias (5) man page.