Need to get Chinese display and input on my computer

I am using Mandrake Linux 9.1

I need to get a Chinese version of Mozilla and OpenOffice, where I can input chinese (openoffice) and read it (mozilla).

When I tried to install the Chinese version of Mozilla, the computer wouldn't recognize any of the characters! (Much like my english version of Windoze trying to read chinese). I need to know how to get my system to display Chinese fonts, so I can use the Chinese web browser, etc.

I also need to get an input program so I can type Chinese into OpenOffice. I've seen several input programs for linux on other computers, so I'm sure this will work.

Also, when my printer tries to print out the chinese characters that do render in mozilla, all it does is print out boxes where the character was. Where can I get print drivers for Chinese?

I don't want to reinstall using Chinese as the installation language, because I want most of my apps to be english because I'm just learning Chinese and I don't know the computer terms, but I do want to be able to type and view Chinese web pages.

I tried searching this site, but all I found was advice on Chinese input programs.

Sorry to sound like a !

Hi,

If you don't mind re-installing Mandrake 9.1 (or 9.2 if you have it), you can get all the Chinese stuff installed on your MDK install without having to use Chinese as the install language.

When the install screen asks which language you wish to use for the install, select English (I assume that is your first or preferred language) as your main language for the installation, but there is a button on the same page called "Advanced", select this and select Chinese Simplified and Traditional (why not?) as additional languages. Then proceed through the rest of the install screens as normal and MDK will install ALL the necessary locale, font and input server files so that you can set it up for you to view and input Chinese characters.

When the installation asks you to create the root user and add additional users, create your normal day-to-day (English-language environment) user and add a separate user to be used for Simplified Chinese environment (and one for the Traditional Chinese environment).

Log into your English user (in KDE if you like), run a new Konsole window and from the command line log into your Chinese user as follows :

english_user@localhost $ su chinese_user-name
password : // enter that user's password
chinese_user@localhost $

Cool.

Now open the /home/chinese_user/.bashrc file with your favourite text editor (vi, pico, Kwrite etc) and add the following lines at the end of the file :-

export LANG=zh_CN
export LC_ALL=zh_CN
export LC_CTYPE=zh_CN
export XMODIFIERS=@im=chinput // other input methods incl. xcin (good for trad Chinese), fcitx, // scim etc.

Save the file, and log out [ $exit ] and log back in to the Chinese user through the command line.

Then run the following command :-

chinese_user@localhost $ chinput & oowriter

This will start the chinput input server, and open Open Office Writer complete with Chinese menus. To activate the Chinese input window, press <CTRL>+<SPACE>. Et voila, you can type away. To toggle through input methods (Pinyin, WuBi, Cangjie etc.) use <ALT>+<SPACE>.

To view web pages etc in Chinese in Mozilla, you don't have to do much because all the fonts etc. were installed at install time, but I've noticed some web pages require you to specify the encoding of that page as Chinese, which you do in Mozilla through the menu - View/Character Coding then select the appropriate coding (usually GB2312 for Mainland webpages or Big5 for pages from Hong Kong, Taiwan).

To set up your Trad Chinese user, follow the steps as above, except that in the 4 lines you add to that user's .bashrc file substitute zh_TW.Big5 for zh_CN and xcin for chinput (although I think chinput handles trad input as well, it's just that xcin was made for trad input).

Have Fun!

JDW

hi JDW & BlueCarrot !
Nice to see some chinese in here(i assume?).

I'm also new in this linux environment, just installed a rh9 on my machine.
I do not need to do chinese text input, but when i browsing chinese content web pages like http://chinese.yahoo.com , the mozilla browser doesn't seem to recognize the encoding set of the page, no matter how i manually change the Character Coding in [View-->Character Coding]. Those pages constantly show the text in some boxes containing 4 codes, e.g. 45C5...5A1B...

Any idea how to solve this ? Replies would be highly appreciated =]

Regards

Hey Heister,

I am not Chinese myself, I look more like a Viking! )<)> (<--bad ascii art)

But anyway, it seems that when you installed RH9 you did not select Simplified and Traditional Chinese as an additional languages for install, which would have provided your sytem with the necessary locales and font files for you to be able to see Chinese characters displayed on various Chinese websites.

All is not lost, if you do not want to reinstall RH9, then have a look on your Red Hat CDs for the appropriate locales files (Simplified and/or Traditional, I would recommend both), and also install the free Arphic font files that come with most major Linux distributions...

That should solve your problem, if you need any further help, we'll see what we can do...

JDW

Yooo !!!
It worked !!

Now this is what i did...
In my RH9 Installation Discs (disc 3), in /RedHat/RPMS/
I have installed these files :

kde-i18n-Chinese-3.1-2.noarch.rpm
kde-i18n-Chinese-Big5-3.1-2.noarch.rpm
ttfonts-zh_CN-2.12-1.noarch.rpm
ttfonts-zh_TW-2.11-19.noarch.rpm

After that, a reboot and yes !! hehehe, i can read my favorite chinese novels again !!

A MILLION THANKS TO JDW !!

You Da Man~ !

Hi,

Good stuff!

oops, sorry I forgot to tell you to put the kde chinese files in there as well, but you found them anyway...

happy reading!

jdw

hihi, hardly ever see chinese linux user around (because i never search hard enough heheh)

where yo'll from?

i decided to leave a post on this thread, because i dont know if any of you've been experienced this:

if you burned a mp3 disc from XP (or any windoze OS). you won't be able to read the chinese in xmms. even if u change the font.

anyone know how to by pass this problem? it annoyed the hell outta me when i can't read from my xmms playlist, and i have to click every sound just to see what it is :P

thanks

p.s: i can read chinese fine...everything seems ok, just xmms being pain in the butt

Hi serpelidor,

I "borrowed" this from the xmms documentation manual at www.xmms.org :-

In the xmms preferences menu you can change the fonts XMMS uses.

[I]'Use fontsets'
Will enable the usage of multi-byte charsets.

'Playlist'
Let's you choose what font XMMS should use for the playlist.

'Use X font'
Makes XMMS use a font for the scrolling title in the main window.[I]

Select "Use fontsets" and restart xmms, it should (hopefully) handle the mutlibyte Chinese fontsets...

btw, just to get off the track, do you know good websites for checking out Mandarin & Cantonese pop music?

cheers,

jdw

Wow... JDW is Da Man.

I am also chinese and totally fat up with MS OS. I have converted myself to use Linux now and just installed RH9.
I stumble onto this site and then this thread it has a lot of helpful information. (Thanks JDW). But i still have a lot to learn. I can now barely navigate myself around the directories and install rpm. I would like to learn how to compile from source and all the neat stuff. Looks like I found myself a new home.

Hey JDW, as for looking up Mandarin/Cantonese Pop Music, I would suggest yesasia.com. Don't know if thats what you are looking for, but they have quite a selection.

I am Chinese,you can use redhat9(I am use redhat linux enterprise 3 now), when you setup it please choice both chinese and English environment£¬and then you can use chinese in the OS.The input software I recommanded you to choice the "fcitx",It is easy to setup and it have the WUBI \shuanpin\quanpin input method.

For the office software, you can use the openoffice1.1,there is a edition inprove by a Taiwan younger(you can download it at the www.linuxfans.org),it can input and display Chinese excellent!

I am bad at English,something I writed at this thread maybe incorrect.For some information,please contract me,My OIQQ number is:63195749¡£my E-mail £ºftlonger@21cn.com

hi JDW, yea i did read that xmms doc sometimes ago, unfortuneately it doesn't help much. because when i switch the font, and it started to show some monster like character....

as to your question in about chinese music, try koish.com, it is a internet radio station that plays chinese song. (in fact once i have my sever setup, i may offer them my sever also so that helps speed up the traffic )

Hi,

I haven't tried listening to any songs with Chinese titles in xmms, so if i get a chance this week i will give it a go...thanks for the tip on the internet radio station, i will try that too...

with xmms, maybe if some guru-type programmer could have a look at the source for xmms and see if there is something in that that doesn't allow or support use of multi-byte codings, i ain't sure coz i am definitely no programmer...though i have started learning python. )

jdw

thats cool man, i think the main problem linux ain't as popular in China or Hong Kong is because chinese char applications are not well supported.

dunno about taiwan, but looks like to me taiwan has more doc about chiense input/output

Hi,

You're quite right, Chinese support for Linux still has a fair way to travel to allow it to work with everything in Linux, but on the other hand it is great now compared to years gone by...gotta look at the positives!

However, with a little tweaking you can set up your PC to browse any Chinese coded webpage or input into Open Office etc.

Have you ever seen/tried Red Flag Linux (which is sponsored by the Chinese govt)? I wouldn't mind havingt a go at that one day to see how a totally Chinese Linux distro handles itself.

For documentation on setting up Linux for Simplified Chinese, how about having a look at www.fcitx.org ? It has a reasonable level of documentation in Chinese...

jdw

hey chinese fellows... after reading this:

http://lfs.crash404.com/lfs/whatislfs.html

and read this:

http://lfs.crash404.com/lfs/view/stable/

i conclude that, it would be very interesting if we can develop our own linux (CHINESE) distro, rather then reply on distro such as redhat, mdk (because they are not as supported as we hope them should be).

not to mention if anyone of you guys experience this: website such as

http://www.crhk.com.hk
http://metroradio.com.hk

are ----NOT-- (i repeat, not!) support anything else but windows, ok i'm gonna take this chance to let my rage goes...

wtf!? M$ control the whole computing / internet industry in HK/ China. with their bull-crap activeX (spit) . these sites embedded their stupid stream from the page, and therefore its super diffcult for us to listen online stream. even with plug-in (such as plugger 5.0)

not to mention Real developed some crap-unsupported player to us , the so call RealOne, or Real8, my god... how many of you actually get the damn thing works through embedded web page?

you maybe able to write down the address and play it through Real, but if that's the case, why do i have to install Real? might as well just use Mplayer. when it comes to embedded pages, our box is complete worthness. (if you know how to fix that, plz share with me heh)

so i conclude that if we can develop a chinese distro, with all the fuctions they could have when running w2k or whatever the craps they are running. here's the benefit i can come up with:


1) more jobs opening for linux people instead of just M$
2) more linux compatible linux applications, therefore good for more linux / unix developer
3) Universities can open more cs courses for Operating System. to keep the linux development going in asia [especially target asia, like what they do in finland] (like what taiwan has been doing)

sorry for such long mumble... happy computing