Re: localization of Grub

[Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>]

On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 12:33:08AM +0100, Carles Pina i Estany wrote:
> >   - gettextise the util tools, so they can be translated as normal programs.
> 
> Do you mean the strings that are generated in standard Linux user-space
> and written to grub.cfg?

I mean every command produced out of util/.  grub-mkconfig, grub-probe,
grub-setup, etc.

> What do you (everybody in the list) think about the text help that
> appears here and there (output of Grub -usually shell- commands?)
> Needed? Or these texts are good enough in English (like commands in the
> programming languages)

I think in long-term it would probably be a good thing to gettextize
everything; but short-term we should focus on the util/ part IMHO.

> This part is more clear (at least theoretically, of course :-) )
> I understand that all error messages, messages, etc. that Grub prints
> while Grub is executing should be translated.
> 
> My understanding is that we should have some module to handle some
> function (eg. _()), that would read some variable to choose to which
> language, if available, translate some string. Like gettext, as you
> said.

Yep, something like that.  Also, it needs to be registered in a function
pointer, so that kernel won't need it unconditionally.

> I understand that we/I should adapt some scripts using, for example, this
> guideline?:
> http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/gettext/Preparing-Shell-Scripts.html

Probably.  I'm afraid I'm no l10n expert :-(

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."