Hi, I'm new to this forum and actually new to Linux altogether. I've finally decided to make the switch from Windows and am choosing Slackware as my first distribution. I have the ISOs but haven't yet installed...still trying to plan out the filesystem.

I just recently moved to China from the States to learn Mandarin as well, and was wondering what my options were under Linux, Slackware in particular, to read and input Chinese characters. I'm not sure if this would be better off in the Software forum, but I thought I'd start here for now.

My initial plan was to run Slackware 12 with Blackbox as my primary WM. I've been reading about this for a few days now though, and it seems like there is no international input support for Blackbox. I really love the simplicity of Blackbox, but I guess it might be too simple since I can't find any plugins that support Chinese. I'd rather not go with something heavier like KDE or Gnome if I could help it (although it seems like I may have to) Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for your help.

-Matt W.

You could use xfce instead, it is a lighter Desktop Enviroment, and I'm sure it has multi-lingual support

Thanks for the reply Ace, I'll definitely start reading about that right away. Looks like it might be what I'm looking for.

Also, and please forgive me I'm completely new to all of this, I can run blackbox as my default WM and then just boot into Xfce when I need to do work in Chinese, correct? Trying to figure a lot of this out on my own, but it's a whole new world for me.

Thanks.

I am not quite sure what blackbox is, but if it is just another Window Manager/Desktop then yes you could switch between xfce and it.
All is controlled using the .xinitrc (note the dot in front) which is located under your home directory.

BTW: if you have figured out how to input Chinese characters under xfce could you please post it back here ? I myself am also looking a way to write some Han Zi documents in Linux...

I don't think it's that easy. I remember helping a friend long time ago to get it running, maybe this changed with newer Xorg versions, but he had to install xcin which means X Window Chinese INput. As you may guess that enabled him to input chinese characters inside X. To display chinese fonts, any program that's able to handle UTF characters (i'm pretty sure that any Gtk/Qt) will do it fine. Firefox on Slackware 12 displays chinese fonts here without any special configuration.

I agree with gbonvehi.


Btw, I don't think input depends on wm you use but rather on what xorg supports.

ๆไำพะั - qwerty in thai using blackbox (setxkbmap th)
йцукен - qwerty in russian using bb (setxkbmap ru)
ąčęėįšųū - lithuanian spec chars using bb (setxkbmap lt)

Talking about bb international support, you probably found info that bb does not use UTF (maybe, I don't use bb so I'm not sure).

blackbox is a dead project, but it spawned many other projects including fluxbox. You'll find that fluxbox is quite similar but much more capable and has lots of users world-wide. My favorite lightweight wm is windowmaker -has a very good gui configuration tool included which most light wm's are missing. I have lots of ggodies to go with it that you can find here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/...s/WindowMaker/
Or, in particular DockApps are here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/...load/DockApps/

Some colleagues and I are working on a special project called SAS ... Slackware Asian Support.

Chinese input in Slackware is not really hard, but requires a few packages. Our tutorial isn't complete yet, but if you'll post back what you've done (step-by-step) thus far, maybe tomorrow I can help you more. NB: We've setup Chinese input using KDE, since it's the most popular wm.

Can you tell us which packages?

Brian

Sometime this week I should be able to get back to that project. The packages needed are:
There are also changes which must be made to these files:
And also, KDE must be changed.

Sorry for the brevity, but it's not quite ready yet. It does look very nice, and Chinese fonts will display in bold, also.

First off, thanks to everyone who has replied so far.

gnashley, I was under the impression that Blackbox was still under development, is that no longer the case? If not, I suppose that would make my decision between Fluxbox and Blackbox an easy one.

Bruce, that sounds fantastic. I have decided that I will be running a minimal WM as my primary, but will then boot into KDE for any specific work I have to do requiring Chinese. I'm looking forward to talking with you more about this, but I have to warn you it's all very new to me. (Read: I hope you can be patient )

I just installed Slackware last night after figuring out a partition/file system scheme. Everything went smooth but I'm having trouble getting my wireless internet working. I've been reading about it all day though and I think I should be able to get it together tonight. Until then I have to keep switching out my laptop HD to replace it with my stable XP install (I chose not to dual boot). I'll let you know as soon as I'm in business though.

-Matt W.

Matt,

For your wireless, post the output of "/sbin/lspci" from a terminal ... xterm will do, and then post the make and model of your laptop. I think we can provide you with easy help to get your wireless working.

We can also get Chinese input working in Fluxbox. Fluxbox is basically a fork of Blackbox, which iirc is no longer maintained.

Bruce,

I'll get the output of that on here in the morning. I could really use the help. I've been reading literally all day about basic commands, scripts, config files...so much to learn. Daunting, but fun.

As far as Fluxbox goes, I think that's definitely what I'll be using for my main WM, and if I can implement Chinese characters through Flux with your SAS that would be the best of both worlds. Really excited for all of this.

-Matt W.

Hi there,

Hope this can help you:
http://www.systemscrafter.com/imho/archives/4

I am a Slackware newbie too, but a regular Red Hat user. I have no problem to read Chinese character with a default installation (using Slackware 12.0 now), and with the guide from the URL above, you should be able to input Chinese character.

Good luck!

I went looking for blackbox and had a bit of a surprise to see that there was a new release 2 years ago. I think the project had been completely stalled for quite awhile before that though.
Any way, I still think you'll have better luck and find more community support by using fluxbox, if you like the blackbox style.
After KDE, GNOME, XFce and iceWM, fluxbox is the most popular WM around and is the one usually suggested for light-weight usage. I personally prefer wmaker, though.