encoding problems

[Mathias Panzenböck]

I'm using Kubuntu 5.10 and updatet with apt-get update && apt-get
upgrade today.

Since installing, I have big problems with character encodings. I'm from
austria, so my system is german. It seemes that all text files will be
written in UTF-8, independend of what I configure. In each program (vim,
gvim, kwrite, kile, ...). But the editor it self thinks it is
latin1/iso-8859-1 (what I whant it to be). So it's imposible to write a
latex document on kubuntu.

Also the encoding in the shell is corrupted. My i18ned version of vim
don't shows in the statusline in insert mode 'Einfügen'. Instead of the
'ü' there is just a box.

I need to write a LaTeX document for university and I need to use umlauts.

Thanks for any help, panzi