andlinux.org

[Hermit]

During installation we're asked whether to use COFS or Samba to access the Windows partition. Only Samba has support for special characters in filenames. Actually I did have files like that (Unicode filenames with non-Latin characters), but since I didn't have file and printer sharing enabled on my Windows setup (for security reasons), I had to choose COFS, thinking those files would not be read correctly.

Then I read that COFS has added Unicode support since version 0.7.1, so I decided to try it. I put the following line in /etc/fstab to try to mount the Windows partition with UTF-8 translation:

/dev/cofs0 /mnt/win cofs defaults,nls=utf8 0 0

After reboot, sure enough, the file system failed to mount, an error about invalid mount option, bad superblock, or missing nls charset. I suspect since the coLinux kernel was compiled without UTF-8 support, it couldn't find a valid NLS charset.

So I removed the nls=utf8 option and mounted the file system normally. Then for some reason I tried to remount with UTF-8 translation:

mount -o remount,nls=utf8 /mnt/win

It actually succeeded and mounted the file system in UTF-8 charset! I don't know why it failed to mount with utf8 in /etc/fstab and succeeded later. Maybe by the second time some needed module has been loaded? Anyway, I put the remount in rc.local and proceeded to the next step.

Once you get the file system mounted in UTF-8 charset, the rest becomes easy. You have to use a UTF-8 locale and/or tell KDE to expect UTF-8 filenames. I think KDE is supposed to use UTF-8 filenames if the locale is UTF-8, GNOME does so regardless of the locale.

I added these two line to /etc/environment

[stas]

This is a great tip. I was struggling (unsuccessfully) to set up samba mounts and just couldn't figure it out. Came across your post and the problem is now solved

Thanks so much. I'd love to see this being added to the wiki!