[Debian-hebrew-common] Re: what is hebrew localized debian ?

Fri Jul 22 11:05:50 UTC 2005

On Fri, Jul 22, 2005 at 02:13:04AM -0700, kobi zamir wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> what is hebrew localized debian ?
> Is it just setting the locale to he_IL.UTF-8 ?

IMHO any settings that are not somewhat derived from that, be it as
dwefaults, are a bug.

If I set my locale to he, it should be obvious to gnome, kde and
openoffice that my language is Hebrew. If it is not: it's their bug.

> 
> Current state:
> --------------
> 
> I've installed a debian testing net-install and
> entered hebrew as my language, when the install
> finished I had:
> 
> system locale: POSIX
> list of all locales: C, POSIX, he_IL, he_IL.iso88598,
> hebrew

This is because of silly issues with the installer. There should be no
real reason to prevent the usage of he_IL.UTF-8. I've had quite a few
problems later on from that he_IL.iso8859-8

> 
> X with no keyboard and no panel applet for keyboard
> settings.

How were the X configuration created? Maybe it should have some
language-dependent parts in the keyboard definitions?

> GNOME/KDE desktops align to left (see mandrivas
> screenshot, it is the same in debian):
> http://ehad.berlios.de/newsite/shots/desktop/ehad2005-desktop-06.png
> 
> No spell checkers, _no english_ and no hebrew.
> and no other hebrew related software installed. 

This is because there exists no package called 'task-hebrew', or
something similar. Check for other languages.

> 
> What I want:
> ------------
> 
> locale: he_IL.UTF-8
> locales: C, POSIX, en_US.UTF-8 (for non-hebrew
> programs), he_IL.UTF-8, hebrew

en_US is a totally-insane default. It has a different paper size and
different measurement units. en_GB is somewhat saner. C.UTF-8 would also
be nice.

> 
> X with (us,il) keyboard, and KDE/GNOME panels align to
> the right.
> 
> Hebrew packages installed.
> 
> How to do this ?
> ----------------
> 
> a. If locales were not created at install time (they
> will not be created until base-config is fixed):

But they are. have you looked at the base-config scripts?

> On our cdd-install we can preseed the locales package
> to create the locales we need and set the default
> system locale.
> If the system is already installed with en locale we
> can create a script to do this.

You should not try to fix such problems just in the installer. Doing
thaty means ignoring the poor users who upgrade.

> 
> b. The deb X-config does not create a (us,il) keyboard

This is a bug of the configuration script of org-server or something
similar.

Oh: the variant si1452 is the wrong way to go, IMHO.

> for some reason, GNOME/KDE desktops are not aware of
> bidi languages and do not reverse desktop layouts for
> KDE/GNOME desktops 

Are you sure? What happens if they have no configuration at all? KDE's
results  are quite dependent on the language from which you ran the
initial desktop config. I'm not sur eabout gnome.

> (until this is fixed):
> We can _not_ create a package that will override
> X/GNOME/KDE settings because of debian policies, but
> we can make a take-over script that the user will
> knowingly run.

Overriding is something that should be only used as a last resort. It
creates many strange and unexpected conflicts. Debian has no default
settings that are left-to-right, though (at least not for KDE), so I'm
not sure if any action here is needed.

> 
> Comments:
> ---------
> 
> On the debian-hebrew wiki Tzafrir wrote that creating
> such scripts is a bad idea, this is probably true.
> we need a new way to solve this problems, waiting
> until base-config, x-config, gnome and kde fix there
> packages is not a good too.
> any suggestions ? may be writing a less invasive
> scrirpts, patches to base-config ?

What we add now should not conflict with the permanent solutions. We can
try to create an alternative repository with our patches applied and
then push them.

> 
> p.s.
> 
> Tzafrir, did you make a debian-cdd using simple-cdd ?
> can you give us to_do/not_to_do tips,
> preseed/download/packages files ?

I have wasted some time on trying to create a CDD using packages from my
own repository. However recently some of the newer tools seem to offer
that functionality.

> 
> Why not use the simple-cdd from svn, you commented in
> the wiki that it is not in sarge, is this a problem ?

Maybe. I did package some simple-cdd packages from svn (at the time)
when I played wit hthem. I hope that cdd stuff is ralively
self-contained and could be backported.

  http://tzafrir.org.il/rapid/

> 
> The new versions of debian-installer (svn) support
> bidi scripts (I think they do) is it a problem to use
> the non-sarge versions ?

Sarge's installer support bidi as well, basically. There is a problem
with alignment, and maybe the issue of UTF-8 .

-- 
Tzafrir Cohen     icq#16849755  +972-50-7952406
tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com  http://www.xorcom.com