The package utf8script provides an additional binary format for Linux: scripts which start with an UTF-8 signature (aka BOM), i.e. with the byte sequence \xef\xbb\xbf#!. This is particularly useful for scripting languages which recognize the BOM, e.g. Python. With Python 2.3 or newer, scripts with the UTF-8 BOM are considered UTF-8 enocded without the need for an addition encoding declaration. The package is available from http://www.dcl.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/home/loewis/utf8script-1.0.tgz An x86 Debian package can be downloaded from http://www.dcl.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/home/loewis/debian/binary/utf8script_1.0-1... Martin v. Löwis martin@v.loewis.de