Re: Should the text in configuration files be translated?
On Tue, May 30, 2000 at 06:20:23PM +0200, Sven LUTHER wrote:
> On Tue, May 30, 2000 at 08:59:01AM -0700, Nathaniel Smith wrote:
> > On Tue, May 30, 2000 at 04:40:09PM +0200, Marcin Owsiany wrote:
> > > On Tue, May 30, 2000 at 04:55:17PM +0400, Michael Sobolev wrote:
> > > > On Tue, May 30, 2000 at 02:42:51PM +0200, Marcin Owsiany wrote:
> > > > > Do you mean pros of setting root's locale to "C" ?
> > > > Yes, exactly.
> > >
> > > the only one I can think of is the translated messages being
> > > inaccurate/wrong/misleading/too poorly translated. But I guess that if one
> > > chooses to do an install in his/her mother tongue, he/she wants the root's
> > > environment localized as well.
> >
> > Won't there be problems with upgrades? I mean, sure, dpkg will notice and
> > prompt,[...]
> Is that not already a problem with the current system ? If you change anything
> in any conffile you will be prompted for changes.
>
> A solution would be to keep the original config file around, and then have
> dpkg make a diff from the original conf file with the current one, and then
> show this diff, and propose to apply the patch to the new conf file.
>
> i think this has some nasty problems still, but it is an idea, ...
I guess that you can't avoid roblems with i18ned config files as long as
dpkg won't support it properly.
dpkg uses md5sums to check if a conffile has changed, right? Let's say that
package 'hello' uses 'hello.conf', and that it was localized. Then I think
the package should contain separate conffiles for every language supported -
like 'hello.conf.pl' 'hello.conf.de' 'hello.conf.ru'...
and the control file (or how it is called - i mean the one with Package
name, description, size etc.) should contain an md5sum for each conffile
version. Then dpkg should either
1) unpack only one version depending what language the user wants her
conffiles in
or
2) unpack all versions and provide a symlink like
'hello.conf' -> 'hello.conf.pl'
AND use appropiate md5sum on upgrades
but that's probably not a solution for potato and a bit off-topic
Marcin
--
+--------------------------------+ The reason we come up with new versions
|Marcin Owsiany | is not to fix bugs. It's the stupidest
|porridge@pandora.info.bielsko.pl| reason to buy a new version
+--------------------------------+ I ever heard. - Bill Gates
Reply to: