Re: common locale configuration
Hi,
At Sun, 26 Nov 2000 16:15:06 +0100,
Eduard Bloch <blade@debian.org> wrote:
> I thought about the existing chaos in the configuration of the varios
> locale setting of all the Debian packages, and considered to developed
> something like an common configuration base for the locale settings.
Please check 'language-env' package. It has configuration database
for German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Thai.
I think the most significant difference between your approach and
my 'language-env' approach is global setting (yours) or per-user
(mine). Though your approach is more straightforward and easy,
mine is more extensible. People speaking different languages
can share a machine.
However, I can imagine a future configuration system which a user
can choose global setting (for personal machine) or per-user setting
(for shared machine).
Please check 'language-env'. I think you will find how complex
configurations are needed for 'exotic' languages such as Japanese.
Though I don't know about configuration of _console_ (because
we cannot configure Linux console for Japanese at all), I think
the ideal console will be sensible to LC_CTYPE locale. If there
is a small software which loads proper font for LC_CTYPE, we can
invoke it from ~/.bashrc or so on. I can imagine the software
can automatically invoke UTF-8 mode when needed (of course the
software checks it from LC_CTYPE locale). If you are interested
in multibyte language, check 'kon2', 'jfbterm', and 'hztty' packages.
Input method is a problem, too. Some complex languages such as
Japanese and Chinese need a separate input method. (Keymap is
not sufficient. Can you imagine a keyboard with thousands of
keys? Even if there were, it would be difficult to use.)
Though X Window System has its standard for input method (XIM),
there are no standard for console. Thus, I can hardly imagine
united configuration (choosing) tool for input method. The
document included in 'language-env' describes about Japanese
input methods.
Though I am not familiar to keymaps, I think it should depends
on what hardware (i.e., keyboard) the system has. Then it must
be global setting. Fortunately, the current Debian installer
asks about keyboard. Can any softwares which need keymap be
configured to use that information?
---
Tomohiro KUBOTA <kubota@debian.org>
http://surfchem0.riken.go.jp/~kubota/
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