[gentoo-user] Kernel update messed up console encoding

[Florian v. Savigny]

Dear listmates,

(I did try to use a more specific mailing list, and tried
gentoo-admin, but it seems there's nobody around.)

I recently updated my kernel from 2.6.17 to 2.6.27, and it seems that
the new kernel causes the encoding of the console to behave weird: 

I used to use the default Unix encoding, i.e. iso-8859-1, because this
was fine for German (now I want to stick to it because I have so much
legacy material in that encoding).  Now, when I type a string with
Non-ASCII characters on the commandline, it looks normal, but when I
redirect this to a file, the file command identifies the contents of
that file (correctly, it seems to me) as UTF-8. When I boot the old
kernel (which I kept), the same procedure results in a file identified
as iso-8859-1 (and with accordingly fewer bytes). Here are the
contents (the same sentence):

Kernel 2.6.17:

"Ich kann es außerdem nicht ändern"

Kernel 2.6.27:

"Ich kann es außerdem nicht ändern"

I grepped the .config files for any options that might have a bearing
on this. The only difference I found was in the first of these four
lines:

linux-2.6.17:

# CONFIG_NLS_ASCII is not set
CONFIG_NLS_ISO8859_1=y
CONFIG_NLS_ISO8859_15=y
CONFIG_NLS_UTF8=y

linux-2.6.27

CONFIG_NLS_ASCII=y
CONFIG_NLS_ISO8859_1=y
CONFIG_NLS_ISO8859_15=y
CONFIG_NLS_UTF8=y

So I set $CONFIG_NLS_ASCII differently for the new kernel. But as far
as I understand, these refer to the handling of file names (it's in
the section "file systems"), and only specify what is supported, so I
don't see how this could have an effect on console encoding.

The only thing I am dead sure about is that the kernel itself must be
the culprit, because when I boot the old kernel, this behaviour goes
away. There is absolutely no change in the system otherwise. (The
$UNICODE variable in /etc/rc.conf is set to "no".)

Can anyone give me a hint where to look what I have messed up? Emacs,
which I sometimes like to use on the console, is particularly
uncomfortable with this, and I seem to write confusing e-mails.

Many thanks in advance for any hint,

Florian