Native Language Support under Linux
My native language, as that of many others isn't english. Therefore, even
though I feel the english language is a good language, I kind of want to have
the system produce messages in my native language.
Seeing that the system has something called a NLS, I set out to explore this
world, for the purpose of having the system talk to me in Icelandic.
My first trip, was to acquire the sources for the C library, to spot the
sources here and see if there was any real support for my native language, and
here I found that there indeed was something called 'nls' a directory that
contained the messages produced by the C library routines. Armed with an
editor, I attacked the directory under the tree, and for an hour I encountered
severe battles with files of type 'error.m' and the like, which I overcome
and forced to my native language. Taking them head on, I did a
make install
that forced these changes into a directory '/etc/locale' where now several
'libc.cat' exist, in different languages. Now, whenever I do a
touch /
as a user, I don't read...
touch: /: Permission denied
but with my LANG environment variable set to 'is', I get...
touch: /: Heimild neitað
Now, I got enthusiastic... and I acquired the sh-tools. I wasn't happy with
just getting these messages in my native language. I wanted to see date
produce...
lau 28.des 1996, 03:02:54 CET
Instead of the well known...
sat des 28 03:02:54 CET 1996
according to the setting in my locale, as given by the data gotten from the
wg15-locale.deb package. Compiling this package didn't help any... so, I
went GNU, and ackuired the newest release of shell-utils from MIT. Here,
running configure, I saw the faul bastard, that was hindering my date to
arrive... they didn't accept my 'strftime' routine... so GNU used it's own,
and so did Debian shell-utils. Their own versions of 'strftime', bypassing
the C-libraries built in configuration for NLS support... knowing, I
immediately
disposed of the traitor... and recompiled with NLS support... and, of course,
the proper LOCALEDIR set to /usr/share/locale instead of GNU's default
/usr/local/share/locale. Now, my eyes spotted something called 'gettext' and
a directory 'po' in the GNU sh-utils package... armed with native power, I
entered and encountered several 'po' files... 'de.po', 'fr.po' and even a
'sv.po' (those swedes are everywhere ;-). The 'sv.po' being closest to me
kin, I took them on and after a long battle... an 'is.po' came to the rescue.
Finally, I did a 'make install'... committing all these 'po'es to the
locale, and now V-time has given me the pleasure of seeing date display:
lau 28.des 1996, 03:03:54 CET
according to my locale, and doing a...
basename --help
produces a...
Notkun: basename NAFN [ENDING]
eða: basename FLAGG
Skrifa NAFN án leiðandi efnisyfirlita
Ef gefið, fjarlægja hangandi endingu.
--help vísa þessa aðstoð og hætta
--version vísa útgáfu upplýsingar og hætta
Gefðu skýrslu um galla til sh-utils-bugs@gnu.ai.mit.edu
instead of ...
Usage: basename NAME [SUFFIX]
or: basename OPTION
Print NAME with any leading directory components removed.
If specified, also remove a trailing SUFFIX.
--help display this help and exit
--version output version information and exit
Report bugs to sh-utils-bugs@gnu.ai.mit.edu
which occurs when under the 'C' locale.
Now, how about a full NLS support under Debian... GNU is going International,
as they are saying. So, why not make a package that provides 'libc.cat'
files and 'packag.po' files for locales.
So, how about it guys?
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