Re: Default language for system
Hi,
(sorry for long reply:-)
Marek Habersack wrote:
> As Michael pointed out in the other mail, another way would be to modify the
> startup scripts to check for a presence of some file in the user's directory
> and ask to setup the default language only if the file doesn't exist. Just a
> general idea.
I'm interested in this point, apart from the original point of this thread,
because this idea can improve my 'user-ja' package, which establishes user's
personal language (Japanese) environment by invocation of 'user-ja-conf'.
Even now, the added lines in the dot-files are surrounded by delimiter lines
and it is possible to detect this. The problem is, to 'internationalize' or
'standardize' this delimiter. The other problem is who (which mechanism)
should be responsible to check it.
To tell the truth, I am thinking of internationalization of 'user-ja' for
about a month. The infrastructure is almost done. I separated Japanese-
specific part and generic part, implemented language menu (though disabled
now), and wrote documents and comments in English (though comments in
Japanese-specific part are written in Japanese, so that Japanese users can
read their own dot-files). Please install 'user-ja' package and read
'/usr/share/doc/user-ja/README.i18n' for detail. You can override
dependency to locale-ja and gconv-modules if you are only to read
the document. 'user-ja' package is almost written in easy Perl scripts
and you may also be interested in hacking them.
My dream is that 'user-ja' is internationalized (and renamed to 'language'
or 'basic-setting' or so on) and displays language menu, that the installer
and adduser and so on invokes 'user-ja-conf' (or 'language' or so on),
and that a user can choose Debian menu item 'select language' to (re)establish
a language environment including complicated input method (required for
CJK people) and so on. Of course 'user-ja-conf' is also called when
Debian installer makes the first non-root user.
> > (3) no one use Polish-disabled console environment,
> Well, (3) is false for 99% of Polish users. I don't know about Japanese
> Windows (I know Japanese uses several coding systems, correct?), but Polish
> windows use completely non-standard (read: M$ Standard) coding and the
> ISO-8859-2 characters simply don't show up. And it's really hard to find
> ISO-8859-2 codings for Windoze (there are some, but they work rather bad).
This is not a problem around MS-Windows. *Linux* console cannot display
Japanese. xterm, Eterm, gnome-terminal, and so on, which cannot display
Japanese, are softwares for *Linux*, not for Windows.
> > If 'kon2' did not work well, boot floppy can use 'Ro-ma ji' expression,
> > that is, Japanese expressed in ASCII characters. (For example, 'KUBOTA'
> > is 'Ro-ma ji' expression of my name.)
> Oops :)) You just answered my question :)). Well then, perhaps the install
> process should use only the latin transcription?
Yes, if it is impossible to use native characters.
IMHO, though it is hard to wait loading Japanese font from floppy,
we can use Japanese characters for CD-based installation.
> > But even if (a) and (b) are solved, boot floppy should not set
> > LANG variable for Japanese. It is because there are many environments
> > which cannot display Japanese such as Linux console, xterm, Eterm,
> Even with unicode?
So far, very little people use unicode in Japan. I tested xterm can display
CJK (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) characters with 'unifont' package.
I know no softwares using Unicode for Japanese catalog file.
We usually use EUC-Japan code, which is a subset of ISO-2022 international
codeset. (There are two universal or international character coding system
--- Unicode family and ISO-2022 family. Please read 'Introduction to i18n'
in the Debian Documentation Project web page for detail.)
> > are available in X, and so on so on. But I have not heard that any
> > Japanese distribution can use Japanese characters for file names (Of
> > course MS-Windows can do).
> Again, if you use Unicode, it's possible.
I don't know because I don't use Unicode. But I think Unicode gets more
popular in future in Japan when basic softwares such as editor, mail
reader, and so on become to be able to handle Unicode.
> > > I'll submit a wishlist for boot-floppy. LANG variable should be set on
> > > first installation.
> > (B) This selection should not be asked for CJK people or basic settings
> > for many softwares (input conversion engine, its interface to XIM,
> > emacs, kon2, and so on so on) should be done at the same time to
> > try to avoid side effects.
> Is it possible at all?
I think it is very difficult. Thus 'user-ja' is growing now.
> > (C) This selection should be able to be modified or erased after
> > installation easily (with one command, if can).
> Yes, and possibly in a "blindfold" way should the console be rendered
> unreadable.
Sorry, I don't understand your English.
---
Tomohiro KUBOTA <kubota@debian.or.jp>
http://surfchem0.riken.go.jp/~kubota/
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