Two or 3 not unrelated issues here:

How do I get Italian as the default keyboard mapping? OK, I can do it easily enough for X sessions in Kde, but it leaves me floundering about in console sessions as, no matter what I do (keymap-install appears to have no effect whatsoever, although I'm not 100% sure I understand the man page) I end up with the us keymappings (OK, so my mother tongue is English -- although not American English) and I have an Italian keyboard.

Knoppix/Debian is the only Linux I've come across which refuses to print (I mean, on screen) non standard ascii characters: for example, I have a lot of oggs by a Macedonian band called Koçani (that's c cedilla) Orkestar: for reasons I can't grok, Although the file name shows correctly (maybe Kde is handing that) XMMS shows the band as Koani Orkestar! Can I fix this?

Note to developers: most of the English speaking world does *not* speak American English or use American imperial measurements or use American keyboards. WTF are these the defaults?