linux localization

linux localization

[XingFei]

Hello
My work will concern with the internationalization of Linux
So, could anybody tell me what kinds of features should be in the
consideration when linux be localized from english to Japanese or chinese,
say using 2 bytes character set.
Thanks a lot

Re: linux localization

[Alan Cox]

> My work will concern with the internationalization of Linux
> So, could anybody tell me what kinds of features should be in the
> consideration when linux be localized from english to Japanese or chinese,
> say using 2 bytes character set.

Most of the Linux userspace libraries are set up for handling UTF8 and
other internationalisations. Fonts are more of an issue and lack of application
translations. Filenames are defined to be UTF8.

Re: linux localization

[Martin Dalecki]

Alan Cox wrote:
> 
> > My work will concern with the internationalization of Linux
> > So, could anybody tell me what kinds of features should be in the
> > consideration when linux be localized from english to Japanese or chinese,
> > say using 2 bytes character set.
> 
> Most of the Linux userspace libraries are set up for handling UTF8 and
> other internationalisations. Fonts are more of an issue and lack of application
> translations. Filenames are defined to be UTF8.

Something along the lines of pcvt (*BSD)
for full userspace line discipline handling on
the console would be great. Read: much saner then trying to do this all
in kernel like
linux does currently. Maybe the linux way was justified during the days
of 386sx 16MHz
somehow. Currently it's relly just plain ugly. Try using some other
character set then iso8859-1 on the linux console to see why.

Re: linux localization

[Rik van Riel]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2001, Alan Cox wrote:

> > My work will concern with the internationalization of Linux
> > So, could anybody tell me what kinds of features should be in the
> > consideration when linux be localized from english to Japanese or chinese,
> > say using 2 bytes character set.
> 
> Most of the Linux userspace libraries are set up for handling UTF8 and
> other internationalisations. Fonts are more of an issue and lack of
> application translations. Filenames are defined to be UTF8.

An appropriate mailing list for i18n would be

	linux-utf8@nl.linux.org

To subscribe to this list, send an email with the text
"subscribe linux-utf8" to

	majordomo@nl.linux.org

cheers,

Rik
--
Virtual memory is like a game you can't win;
However, without VM there's truly nothing to lose...

		http://www.surriel.com/
http://www.conectiva.com/	http://distro.conectiva.com.br/

Re: linux localization

[Andreas Dilger]

XingFei writes:
> My work will concern with the internationalization of Linux
> So, could anybody tell me what kinds of features should be in the
> consideration when linux be localized from english to Japanese or chinese,
> say using 2 bytes character set.

Is this for Linux console i18n?  TurboLinux has a kernel patch (2.2)
for Unicode support on the console (with CJK input):

http://www.turbolinux.com.cn/TLDN/chinese/project/unicon/

Cheers, Andreas
-- 
Andreas Dilger  \ "If a man ate a pound of pasta and a pound of antipasto,
                 \  would they cancel out, leaving him still hungry?"
http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/               -- Dogbert

Re: linux localization

[Rick Hohensee]

>> My work will concern with the internationalization of Linux
>> So, could anybody tell me what kinds of features should be in the
>> consideration when linux be localized from english to Japanese or
chinese,
>> say using 2 bytes character set.
>
>Most of the Linux userspace libraries are set up for handling UTF8 and
>other internationalisations. Fonts are more of an issue and lack of
application>translations. Filenames are defined to be UTF8.

For the features that don't exist in Linux yet, you want to look closely
at Plan 9 From Bell Labs, whence UTF-8 originates. Plan 9 for example has
font cacheing in the kernel for huge glyph sets, if I read it right. The
Plan 9 C compiler, written by Ken Thompson, author of UNIX and ed,
specifically for writing Plan 9, is fully UTF-8 also. Everything else in
Plan 9 is also UTF-8, from ed to libc to the GUI.

Per-process namespaces are a Plan 9 idea also. That is the ultimate in
localization. Plan 9 was released relatively recently under a license
clearly patterned after the GPL. Congratulations once again to Richard
Stallman. Thompson, Ritchie, Pike and so on have embraced his most
important ideas. 

Plan 9 has a narrow platform base compared to Linux or NetBSD. I myself
haven't been able to install it on my oldish hardware. You probably need
to see it running, I suspect. 

My own Dotted Standard File Hierarchy mechanism in cLIeNUX
(Linux/GNU/unix) may also be of interest. See my "/" below. That could
easily be Japanese, Mandarin, Hindi, etc.

ftp://linux01.gwdg.de/pub/cLIeNUX/descriptive/DSFH.html

Rick Hohensee
www.clienux.com

:; cLIeNUX /dev/tty3  00:12:08   /
:;d -d */
Linux//        dev//          help//         mounts//       suite//
boot//         device//       incoming//     owner//        temp//
command//      floppy//       log//          source//
configure//    guest//        lost+found//   subroutines//
:; cLIeNUX /dev/tty3  00:42:44   /
:;