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I am russian and I learn japanese, and I use Windows, so I need some of my files on NTFS to be named in these languages (As well as other filesystems, of course). I tried a number of "Slackware language how-to"`s, but they didn`t lead to anything, except broken setcolsolefont dialog or undisplayable russian system alerts. Also, I`ve got a problem with languages in X - typing in russian or japanese to some programs (i.e. Skype). However, OpenSuSE didn`t have any of those problems (10.3 and 11.0 at least) - neihter in X, nor in console.
What is the difference between language-handling in those and what do I need to bring from SuSE to Slackware to make it as language-tolerant as SuSE is? I don`t mind recompiling the kernel, but not the loads of programs I have - unless it`s inevitable.
P.S. I`d also appreciate hints on fixing the setconsolefont script (Line 41 : ambigous redirect - the line where DIALOG command is executed)
Suse has several employees doing all this and as Suse started out as a German Linux distribution "a foreign language" has been an issue from the beginning.
* enable Unicode support by setting the correct environment.
* choose the right fonts for either russian or/and japanese (Arial for example)
* install "scim" as an input engine - essentially, you type japanese in romanji like "nihon go" and the engine translates this into kana and makes suggestions for the appropriate kanji. Russian can be typed in three ways: plug in a russian keyboard and change the X/console keyboard layout entirely or ese a transparent foliage for a standard keyboard and switch the X/console layout (can be done on the fly with a running system back and forth) or you use scim. (Which is probably extremly annoying and slow for a native...)
* use as many Gtk applications as possible - Gtk - the underlying Pango to be precise has the _very_ helpful feature of supporting direct input of Unicode code points while pressing Ctrl-Shift-U<code point> - perfect for just typing an URL with a japanese domain or just needing some single letter in a foreign language.
To convert your Windows files (which use UTF-16 and not UTF-8 Unicode as Linux does), you ideally use "iconv".
It's definitely some tweaking involved, but you actually can have pretty decent support for mixed languages not being just ASCII or even not have roman letters.
I've got a setup essentially leaving everything English but being able to type German and read, input and print Japanese.
I am russian and I learn japanese, and I use Windows, so I need some of my files on NTFS to be named in these languages (As well as other filesystems, of course). I tried a number of "Slackware language how-to"`s, but they didn`t lead to anything, except broken setcolsolefont dialog or undisplayable russian system alerts. Also, I`ve got a problem with languages in X - typing in russian or japanese to some programs (i.e. Skype). However, OpenSuSE didn`t have any of those problems (10.3 and 11.0 at least) - neihter in X, nor in console.
What is the difference between language-handling in those and what do I need to bring from SuSE to Slackware to make it as language-tolerant as SuSE is? I don`t mind recompiling the kernel, but not the loads of programs I have - unless it`s inevitable.
P.S. I`d also appreciate hints on fixing the setconsolefont script (Line 41 : ambigous redirect - the line where DIALOG command is executed)
I had no problems with displaying russian and japanese filenames on ntfs volumes, and typing in english/russian. So, what exactly did you try to configure your system? And exactly which howtos have you tried?
Check this link. But since you want japanese, then you'll need utf8, not koi8-r, so you might also want to check this link too.
Now, out of curiosity, why did you switch from OpenSuSE to Slackware if the language handling worked in OpenSuSE?
It`s much more stable than SuSE is. For example, SuSE couldn`t normally handle several window managers or desktop environments. On Slackware, I`ve got awesome, gnome (GSB), KDE, Xfce, ion, ratpoison, and everything runs flawelssly, even if simultaneous on different X servers. I`ve never had any problems after installing new programs, unlike SuSE. Slackware is faster than SuSE, at least on my computer. Also, the whole system is very clear - everything is documented, commented and how-to`ed
Quote:
Originally Posted by ErV
So, what exactly did you try to configure your system? And exactly which howtos have you tried?
Editing files in /usr/share/kbd (as coosing locale, mapping, etc. - don`t remember already). Also, choosing a russian font with setcolsolefont.
Update : the string was Line41 : $REPLY : ambiguous redirect.
I got to the roots of it : the folder /var/log/setup/tmp didn`t allow me to create files there, so the mktemp command gave an error and left REPLY empty. So, the dialog command got an emty string as a redirect (see 2> $REPLY). So I changed the permissions for /var/log/setup/tmp.
to SuShee : I didn`t find any .bashrc in my home folder. Should I make one? How does it have to look then? Also, if I`d like to use zsh and sh too, how to set everything for them?
to SuShee : I didn`t find any .bashrc in my home folder. Should I make one? How does it have to look then? Also, if I`d like to use zsh and sh too, how to set everything for them?
I cannot tell about zsh and sh, but for bash many use .bashrc and .bash_profile. I have found many recommendations for .bash_profile to just source .bashrc like this and do nothing more:
Code:
#!/bin/bash
if [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ] ; then
source $HOME/.bashrc
fi
There is no rules how .bashrc has to be. You can put any command in it that bash should run, like any "autostart" or alias or whatever.
Code:
#!/bin/bash
alias ls="ls -al"
# do whatever you like :)
Internationlisation and Localisation are traditional differentiators of SuSE.
And it's the advantage of open source and Linux that the experience and groundwork
done by SuSE and many other supporters, is shared with the rest of the community.
So Slackware, as a "conservative" distribution, heavily benefits from the pioneer work
of others, "modern" or even "bleeding-edge" distributions.
So Slackware is a parasit. That's why I use it.
What I am going to say: OpenSuSE is great, IMHO, and in fact,
everything is documented there, too, but you can have almost
everything, but YaST, on Slackware, too. Things like
multi-language support just are preconfigured in a useful way
for most applications in OpenSuSE, and must be configured by
hand in Slackware. This may be a disadvantage. On the other hand,
I haven't seen another system that can be configured "by hand" so
quickly and easily as Slackware.
Editing files in /usr/share/kbd (as coosing locale, mapping, etc. - don`t remember already). Also, choosing a russian font with setcolsolefont.
You must also set system locale to tell the system which language is being used, and which encoding you want. It should be explained in links I gave before.
Well, so here are some results :
1. In file managers on reiserfs (and, probably, all other unix FS) the filenames ARE displayed correctly. I`m happy (:
2. In "terminal", "gnome-terminal" and "xterm" I can normally read and type russian & japanese. I`m happy twice (:
3. In console, I didn`t find a font which would now display the name correctly. I`ve downloaded one which is said to include both cyrillic and japanese character sets. However, it`s extension is .bdf, and I don`t know where to put it. Sorry, can`t tell where i`ve downloaded it from - all bookmarks and history were in firefox.
4. The .bashrc runs EVERY time I run bash - xterm and others included. That`s : a) annoying messages and a delay till all`s set up b) not needed (I really hope) c) prone to bugs with scim
5. firefox now crashes with this : /usr/lib/firefox-2.0.0.17/run-mozilla.sh: line 131: 4044 Segmentation fault "$prog" ${1+"$@"}
About that iconv - it converts the files themselves. However, I need the NAMES to be displayed. Slackware pretends these files just aren`t there.
Yes. iconv is for everything _in_ the file and convmv for the filenames themselves.
Console I've never cared for - if I actually use console and not a shell within an xterm I'm doing some config stuff as root and root is funny-char-less in my system - just to be on the safe side.
Firefox seg fault I have no idea; but I'm already in the FF3-generation.
This happens when you mount partition with default ntfs driver (instead of ntfs-3g) and forget to specify iocharset (or whatever that option was called on default ntfs driver). You should use ntfs-3g driver which is included in slackware 12.2.
/etc/fstab line for mounting ntfs partition will look like this:
This happens when you mount partition with default ntfs driver (instead of ntfs-3g) and forget to specify iocharset (or whatever that option was called on default ntfs driver). You should use ntfs-3g driver which is included in slackware 12.2.
/etc/fstab line for mounting ntfs partition will look like this:
If your locale is not ru_RU.UTF8, you should insert the one you are using instead.
yep! it works! YAAY!
btw, a little riddle : before I made the changes, the line would look like that :
/dev/hdc1 /mnt/d ntfs-3g umask=000 1 0
non-english files were not there.
doing
umount /mnt/d
mount /mnt/d
would use fstab, right?
but it solved the problem till next reboot (:
btw, a little riddle : before I made the changes, the line would look like that :
/dev/hdc1 /mnt/d ntfs-3g umask=000 1 0
non-english files were not there.
Yes, because you didn't specify locale, ntfs-3g didn't know how to convert filenames and simply dropped all non-english names.
I guess in previous post I forgot that such problem (disappearing files if no locale is specified) was happening with ntfs-3g as well, not only with ntfs driver (as I said before).
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