/bin/unicode_start is in kbd 2.0.3-2+b1.
This file is owned by root:root, with mode 0o755.
The actual contents of the file can be viewed below.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100  | #!/bin/sh
# 0. Check whether we're on a console
TTY="`/usr/bin/tty`"
case "$TTY" in
	/dev/console|/dev/vc*|/dev/tty[0-9]*)
		;;
	*)
		echo "unicode_start skipped on $TTY" >&2
		exit 0
		;;
esac
# Enables Unicode processing in the current console.
#
if [ ! -e /proc/self/fd/0 ] ; then
   echo "Won't set unicode mode: Can't determine console type;" >&2
   echo " Please ensure that /proc is mounted." >&2
   exit 1
fi
readlink /proc/self/fd/0 | grep -q -e /dev/vc -e '/dev/tty[^p]' -e /dev/console
if [ $? -eq 1 ]; then
    echo  "Won't set unicode mode: not a VT." >&2
    exit 1
fi
# 1. The input side: the keyboard driver.
# Set the keyboard driver in Unicode mode. (Default is ASCII mode.)
# This really does nothing with the way normal keys are handled in
# the kernel. All it does is:
# - It is necessary for `dumpkeys' in order to not drop U+XXXX
#   entries from the keymaps.
# - It is necessary for `loadkeys' in order to avoid warnings.
# - Unicode characters typed as Alt-x1 ... Alt-xn (where x1,...,xn
#   are digits on the numeric keypad) will be emitted in UTF-8.
kbd_mode -u
# Change the keyboard mapping in such a way that the non-ASCII keys
# produce UTF-8 encoded multibyte sequences, instead of single bytes
# >= 0x80 in a legacy 8-bit encoding.
# Non-root users are allowed to change the unicode mode of their console, but
# not the global keymap. root will have to load the keymap in unicode mode
# explicitly.
uid="`id -u 2>/dev/null`" ||:
if [ "$uid" = '0' ]; then
	# There is no way of reverting the effect of "dumpkeys | loadkeys --unicode",
	# the memory of the earlier keymap is lost. Therefore, try
	# to save a copy of the original keymap to be able to reload it in unicode_stop.
	# (see also http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/2003-08/msg00053.html):
	[ -n "$HOME" -a "$HOME" != '/' ] ||
		HOME='/root'
	if [ -d "$HOME" -a -w "$HOME" ]; then
		[ -d "$HOME/.kbd" ] ||
			mkdir -- "$HOME/.kbd"
		[ ! -w "$HOME/.kbd" ] ||
			dumpkeys > "$HOME/.kbd/.keymap_sv"
	fi
	# redirect stderr and stdout of loadkeys to /dev/null to avoid the confusing
	# "plus before udiaeresis ignored" warnings.
	dumpkeys | loadkeys --unicode > /dev/null 2>&1
fi
# 2. The output side: the console screen.
# Tell the console output driver that the bytes arriving are UTF-8
# encoded multibyte sequences.
if [ -t 1 -a -t 2 ]; then
	printf '\033%%G'
fi
stty iutf8
# Tell the graphics card how to display Unicode characters not
# contained in the IBM 437 character set (on PCs). The font should
# have a Unicode map attached, or explicitly specified, e.g.,
# by giving `def.uni' as a second argument.
case "$#" in
	2)
		setfont "$1" -u "$2"
		;;
	1)
		setfont "$1"
		;;
	0)
		;;
	*)
		echo "usage: unicode_start [font [unicode map]]"
		;;
esac
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