Language support in Slackware

by Eric Hameleers

http://slackware.com/~alien/
[email protected]
Presented at:
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
for the Slackware Show
Encontro Nacional de Usuarios Slackware

http://slackshow.slackwarebrasil.org/
August 2122, 2008

E. Hameleers ( Presented at: Universidade Presbiteriana

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Overview

Overview of this presentation

Language support and input methods

Introduction
Computers and texts
Internationalization and localization
Linux for non-english people
Unicode in the console
Unicode in X-Window
Other resources

E. Hameleers ( Presented at: Universidade Presbiteriana

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Overview

Overview of this presentation

Language support and input methods

Introduction
Computers and texts
Internationalization and localization
Linux for non-english people
Unicode in the console
Unicode in X-Window
Other resources
We will see how SCIM can be used to input complex characters in your X
applications.

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Introduction

Introduction

Eric Hameleers - Slackware user since 1996

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Computers and texts

Historical

Computers and texts

In early days, computers used 7-bit ASCII for text

Other European fonts required 8 bits per character
Unicode was invented to work for all language texts

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Computers and texts

Unicode

Unicode

Unicode does not dene how characters are displayed

Unicode allows for more than a million characters
Unicode characters are called code points
Several standards of encoding exist which dene how to store
characters. UTF-8 is the most well-known
In UTF-8, ASCII characters use up 1 byte; Latin-1 characters 2 bytes;
complex characters 3 bytes
This makes UTF-8 compatible with ASCII texts (no size dierence)

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Computers and texts

Locales

Locales

Locale is the set of parameters that dene how a computer is localized

Locale parameters:
language, country, currency, number formats and more
List your available locales:

locale -a
nd out which locale is currently active:

locale

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Computers and texts

Locales

Locales (cont'd)

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE=C
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

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Computers and texts

Locales

Locales (cont'd)

Locate settings are dened in /etc/prole.d/lang.sh (globally) or

/.profile

(per-user setting)

Example: I want my desktop to display messages and menus in English

but use Dutch localization (measurements, currency, time display,
word sort, paper sizes and such):

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Computers and texts

Locales

Locales (cont'd)

I will have to add this to my startup scripts:

LANG="en_US"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US"
LC_CTYPE="nl_NL@euro"
LC_COLLATE="nl_NL@euro"
LC_TIME="nl_NL"
LC_NUMERIC="nl_NL"
LC_MONETARY="nl_NL@euro"
LC_PAPER="nl_NL"
LC_TELEPHONE="nl_NL"
LC_ADDRESS="nl_NL"
LC_MEASUREMENT="nl_NL"
LC_NAME="nl_NL"

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Internationalization and localization

Internationalization and localization

Internationalization and localization are related to the ability of software to

be used with dierent languages and regions.
Internationalization of software (abbreviated to i18n) means that it
uses libraries which enable support for new languages without having
to rewrite the complete application.
Localization of software (abbreviated to L10n, note the capital L)
means that you add text translations and locale-specic elements.

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Internationalization and localization

Internationalization and localization

All major Free and Open Source (FOSS) initiatives support the
and

L10n

i18n

standards:

KDE, Gnome, OpenOce, Mozilla, ...

and many of the smaller FOSS projects implement support as well.

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Linux for non-english people

Linux for non-english people

With locales, UTF-8, i18n and L10n, we have the basics covered. We can
fully customize our Slackware computer for use in our own country.
We start with enabling Unicode.
dene a UTF-8 locale for at least the language and messages.
Easiest way is to edit /etc/prole.d/lang.sh and change:

export LANG=en_US
#export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
to

#export LANG=en_US
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
and login again.
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Linux for non-english people

Linux for non-english people

Use your own language instead of en_US of course. For this

presentation, we will assume en_US.UTF-8.

Note

: the extension to your language setting must be .UTF-8.

When you look at the output of the

locale -a

command, you will

see en_US.utf8 listed.

Be careful not to copy and paste this value from the
Your Unicode support will not be enabled.

locale -a

output!

The next sections describe:

How to display Unicode in the Linux console
How to display and input Unicode in X Window

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Unicode in the console

Unicode in the console

Using non-latin text in the console is made easier starting with the Linux
2.6.24 kernel. The linux console is Unicode-enabled by default. In earlier
days, you had to run

unicode_start
in a console to enable Unicode support.
Slackware disables unicode in

/etc/lilo.conf

(user selectable during

installation):

append="vt.default_utf8=0"

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Unicode in the console

Unicode in the console

You will need a console font with decent Unicode coverage. Example:

terminus font

(not part of Slackware).

To load this font after you installed it, you need to add the following to
your

/.profile

le:

if [ "$TERM" == "linux" ]; then

setfont ter-v16n
fi
The default Slackware console font will be loaded with UTF-8 extensions if
you run the command:

setfont -v
which also gives good results.

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Unicode in the console

Unicode in the console

There are good reasons why Slackware does not come with a
Unicode-enabled console by default.
The collection of tools on your system expects input in plain roman
text (ASCII text). Entering a Unicode text string on the command
prompt can have unexpected results if the shell interprets this string
and executes the command.
Several terminal-based (curses) applications will not display correctly especially in case of graphical characters. This is caused by the double
size of these Unicode characters.
Show characters of your console font:

showconsolefont

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Unicode in X-Window

Unicode in X-Window

Slackware has always been able to show non-english text, thanks to the
available locales and the internazionalization of many of the applications
that come with it. However:
The installer is available only in english.
This will not change.
The consoles are not Unicode-enabled by default.
This may change in future, when all of the console applications are
able to display their text and interface correctly.
No decent support existed for non-european languages. Specically,
CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean, or just 'Asian language') support.
This has changed in Slackware 12.1.

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Unicode in X-Window

Slackware

Unicode in X-Window (cont'd)

What was the status before Slackware 12.1?

Slackware did not have high-quality fonts with full CJK coverage
TrueType font rendering of double-width fonts like Chinese was messy
and lacked proper bold-face.
Text input for these languages was dicult.
Several initiatives to add CJK language support existed which required
extensive patching of core Slackware packages (X, fontcong, freetype)
The best looking fonts (or even, good-looking fonts at all) were all
produced by Microsoft and thus, non-free.

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Unicode in X-Window

Slackware development

Unicode in X-Window (cont'd)

What happened during the development of Slackware 12.1?

In Slackware 12.1 we made an eort to converge all the missing pieces
into the core distribution.
By 2007, CJK font rendering in freetype, fontcong and the X libraries
had advanced to a point where patching of the vanilla sources was no
longer required.
Several excellent free TrueType Unicode fonts were added.
Redhat Liberation fonts (MS core font replacement)
Zen Hei (Wen Quan Yi family - Chinese coverage)
Sazanami (Japanese coverage)
Sinhala (for display of Sanskrit/Sri Lankan texts)
TibMachUni (Tibetan Machine Unicode font)

Crucial was the addition of keyboard input methods!

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Unicode in X-Window

SCIM

SCIM

Keyboard input methods allow the user to enter extended (non-latin)

characters using a standard keyboard.
Several projects exist that implement Input Methods, like UIM and
IIIMF, fcitx, and SCIM.
We adopted the SCIM (Smart Common Input Method) platform
because it is widely adopted among other distributions, is actively
developed and covers a lot more than just CJK input.
These factors make it the safe choice.
How do we use SCIM for working with Unicode texts?
Read HINTS_AND_TIPS.TXT on the Slackware CD!

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Unicode in X-Window

SCIM

SCIM (cont'd)

The rst requirement is to use a UTF-8 locale. We covered this earlier

on. The scim daemon will not start if it detects lack of UTF-8 support.
Make the scim prole scripts executable. These will setup your
environment correctly for the use of scim with X applications. Run
this command as root:

chmod +x /etc/profile.d/scim.*

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Unicode in X-Window

SCIM

SCIM (cont'd)

Start the scim daemon as soon as your X session starts. The scim
daemon must be active before any of your X applications start.
In KDE, you can add a shell script to the

/.kde/Autostart

folder

that runs the command scim -d.

In XFCE you can add "scim -d" to the Autostarted Applications.
If you boot your computer in runlevel 4 (the graphical XDM/KDM
login) you can add the line scim -d to your

/.xprofile

le. This

method is independent of the Desktop Environment you use.

GTK apps like refox will crash in case you remove or forget to install
the

scim-bridge

package, so take care which packages you leave out.

A full Slackware installation is always recommended if your hard drive

has the available space.

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Unicode in X-Window

SCIM

Using SCIM

When SCIM is up and running, you will see a small keyboard icon in
your system tray.
The key sequence to activate SCIM input is:

<Cntrl><Space>

SCIM oers input methods for many other languages like Greek,
Russian, even accented German is possible.
In addition to the use of SCIM, GTK is Unicode friendly and allows to
enter unicode characters directly.
If you know the number of a code point (Unicode character) you can
input this character into any GTK input eld, using the key
combination of

<Ctrl>-U + number

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Other resources

Other resources

UTF-8 explained on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8
Gentoo's HOWTO on using Unicode

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Make_your_system_use_
unicode/utf-8
Good article on locales

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/systems/index.
jsp?topic=/com.ibm.aix.nls/doc/nlsgdrf/locale_env.htm

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About the author

About the author

I am a Linux user since the 0.99 kernel releases and ran into Slackware
Linux around 1996. The rst need to make modications to Slackware
occurred when I joined IBM and was doomed to use Token Ring for which
there was no support in the network scripts :-)
I still help with the Slackware develoment in 2008. I also maintain a
repository of non-ocial Slackware packages and scripts, I am one of the
admins of the SlackBuilds.org website, and sometimes like to write articles
for my own Wiki. I was born in the Netherlands and still live there, with
wife, son and several small animals.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome

[email protected]
A copy of this presentation can be found at:

http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackshow2008/
E. Hameleers ( Presented at: Universidade Presbiteriana
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