Debian GNU/Linux Reference - 9.7.9 Example for a multilingual X window system

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9.7.9 Example for a multilingual X window system

Let us set up a multilingual X window system which simultaneously supports Japanese, English, German, and French with EUC, UTF-8, and ISO-8859-1 encodings in different consoles.

I will show you a customization using the Debian menu system. See the details of Debian menu system in /usr/share/doc/menu/html/index.html. I also create a shortcut to the mozilla web browser in this example. [ 46]

add locale support for the Japanese ja_JP.eucJP locale and other required locales using the method described at Localization (l10n), Section 9.7. (for all)

install Kana-to-Kanji conversion system and dictionary (for Japanese):
- canna – Local server ("free-beer" license), or
- freewnn-jserver – Network-extensible server (Public Domain)

install Japanese input method system (for Japanese):
- kinput2-canna – for X, or
- kinput2-canna-wnn – for X, and
- egg – directly works with Emacsen even in console (optional)

Install compatible terminals (for all):
- xterm – X (for ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8),
- kterm – X (for Japanese EUC), and
- mlterm – X (multilingual).

add all the required font packages. (for all)

create the ~/.xsession that sets the user-specific X environment as described in Custom X sessions, Section 9.4.5.1 (for all):

     #!/bin/sh
     # This makes X work when I su to root.
     if [ -z "$XAUTHORITY" ]; then
             XAUTHORITY=$HOME/.Xauthority
             export XAUTHORITY
     fi
     
     # Set specific environment through debian menu system.
     # Reset locale
     unset LC_CTYPE LC_NUMERIC LC_TIME LC_COLLATE LC_MONETARY LC_MESSAGES 
     unset LC_PAPER LC_NAME LC_ADDRESS LC_TELEPHONE LC_MEASUREMENT 
     unset LC_IDENTIFICATION LC_ALL LANG LANGUAGE PAGER
     # set locale default in X
     LANG=C
     # export locale
     export LC_CTYPE LC_NUMERIC LC_TIME LC_COLLATE LC_MONETARY LC_MESSAGES 
     export LC_PAPER LC_NAME LC_ADDRESS LC_TELEPHONE LC_MEASUREMENT 
     export LC_IDENTIFICATION LC_ALL LANG LANGUAGE PAGER
     ###
     # activate input method for Japanese with kinput2
     kinput2 &
     XMODIFIERS="@im=kinput2"
     export XMODIFIERS
     # How about blackbox window manager (lightweight)
     exec blackbox
     #exec xfwm
     #exec wmaker

set locale in ~/.bash_profile for Linux consoles (for all).

remove locale settings from ~/.bashrc, if existed (for all).

create few files in /etc/menu/ (for all).

/etc/menu/xterm-local: (add new entries to menu) [47]

     ?package(xterm):\
      needs=x11\
      section=XShells\
      longtitle="XTerm: terminal emulator (en_US.ISO-8859-1)"\
      title="XTerm (en_US.ISO-8859-1)"\
      command="sh -c 'LC_ALL=en_US.ISO-8859-1 xterm'"
     ?package(xterm):\
      needs=x11\
      section=XShells\
      longtitle="XTerm: terminal emulator (de_DE.ISO-8859-1)"\
      title="XTerm (de_DE.ISO-8859-1)"\
      command="sh -c 'LC_ALL=de_DE.ISO-8859-1 xterm -T xterm-de'"
     ?package(xterm):\
      needs=x11\
      section=XShells\
      longtitle="XTerm: terminal emulator for X with Unicode support (Japanese)"\
      title="UXTerm (ja_JP.UTF-8)"\
      command="sh -c 'LC_ALL=ja_JP.UTF-8 uxterm'"

/etc/menu/kterm: (override the system default) [48]

     ?package(kterm):\
      needs="x11"\
      section="XShells"\
      command="sh -c 'LC_ALL=ja_JP.eucJP PAGER=w3m /usr/X11R6/bin/kterm -xim'" \
      title="Kanji Terminal"
     ?package(kterm):\
      needs="x11"\
      section="XShells"\
      command="sh -c 'LANG=ja_JP.eucJP \
               LC_MESSAGES=en_US.ISO-8859-1 PAGER=w3m /usr/X11R6/bin/kterm -xim'" \
      title="Kanji Terminal (bilingal)"

/etc/menu/mozilla-local: (add a new shortcut) [49]

     ?package(mozilla-browser):needs="x11" section="/" \
             title=" Mozilla Navigator" command="mozilla-1.5" hints="Web browsers" \
             icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/mozilla.xpm

run update-menus from the root account.

add the following lines to ~/.muttrc (for Japanese):

     # UTF-8 support is not popular in popular Japanese EMACS environment
     # 7-bit encoding of iso-2022-jp is easier for everyone.
     # default encoding order = us-ascii --> iso-8859-1 --> iso-2022-jp
     set send_charset="us-ascii:iso-8859-1:iso-2022-jp"
     set allow_8bit=no

activate XIM kinput2 for X applications (for Japanese):
- add *inputMethod: kinput2 and KTerm*VT100*OpenIm: true to your X resources file, ~/.Xresources (it looks like Debian takes care of this automatically somehow).
- Some applications (such as mlterm) also allow you to set up *inputMethod: and other information dynamically at runtime (press Ctrl-MouseButton-3 in mlterm).

start X by typing startx or from one of the display managers (xdm, gdm, kdm, wdm, ...) (for all).

start a Japanese-compatible application such as Vim 6, (x)emacs21, mc-4.5, mutt-1.4, ... in kterm (for Japanese). (Emacs seems to be the most popular platform, though I do not use it.)

press Shift+Space to toggle Japanese character input mode on and off (for Japanese).

read the localized manual page by starting command in localized console (for all).

For other CJK language supports, see the following sections and SuSE pages for CJK.

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