[debian-devel:10371] Re: Muilti-lingual boot procedure

[Taketoshi Sano <xlj06203@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi. 

# This question is posted on debian-i18n, but I think it maybe 
# more likely to be answered on debian-boot list, and add
# "Reply-To: debian-boot@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

In article <37D74ADE.11D8AD3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
 okul@xxxxxxxxxxx (ökul) writes:

> Hi!
> 
> Will next release of Debian support muilti-lingual boot?

I am interested in this topic also. I have read on debian-boot
that Adam Di Carlo maintains the CVS repository for translations
of documents in boot-floppies, but I don't know if the dinstall
in boot-floppies have the feature required for i18n & l10n installer.

I think that since the normal virtual console of Linux can not display
Japanese text (I don't know if the one of Hurd can, but it likely seems
negative,,,) we require the scheme to use another virtual console
for the languages which can not be displayed by normal one (in the case 
of Japanese we have kon2) or the scheme to use X11 and the terminal
as such as rxvt-ml series.

Maybe the installer for potato does not afford to adopt those new scheme,
but we require the multi-lingual or (at least) localized installer for
the people who needs the support in their native language.

Some weeks ago, NABETANI Hidenobu <nabetani@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
posted a question on debian-devel@debian.or.jp (one of the lists provided
by Debian JP project on which Japanese language is mainly used) about

     Which is the better choice ? for support of various language in
     installer of Debian  (installer messages, documents, ...)

 a) provide the install CD which have the support for all required languages.

 b) provide some install CDs, one for each required language support.

NABETANI wrote he thinks that b) is better, and let the one CD in official
CD-ROMs be the install CD for each language, and the rest be unified CDs.

Then Keita Maehara <maehara@debian.or.jp> replied that he think that
the choice of b) is difficult since it requires much more space to
distribute the official CD-ROM image. And he wrote that we have to do 
the work for translation of messages and documents in boot-floppies 
on CVS before thinking about the choice above, and since y-endo has
already been doing the work for translation of the documents, we should
do the translation of messages.

He also wrote that while the translation work is important, we can not
forget that we needs the scheme to display multi-byte language text 
using some different virtual terminals (kon2/jfbterm etc...)

Then GOTO Masanori <gotom@debian.or.jp> wrote that he think that a) is 
better because the choice of b) require the much more disk space and
much more work. And he wrote if the default virtual console has the support
for display multibyte-language (in this case, UTF-8 only implementation is
an usable option if we can, for example by the modification of console-tools),
we does not require the scheme of using different console or terminals on X11.

He wrote, he can not imagine the disk size of all the required fonts, 
but under the assumption that we need total 5000 letters in 16x16 for required 
languages, the total disk for the these fonts will be 1.25MB, and it can be
included one extra floppy disk. He thought that by using compression and 
smaller fonts, the required space for fonts will be smaller than this estimate.

And he agreed with Maehara that we should do the required translations first,
then think about these implementation for multi-lingurized installer. 

# btw, NABETANI, Maehara, GOTO is their famili name. The notation in english
# for the name of Japanese is not unified. Some people wrote in order of
# "Family name, Personal name" but others prefer "Personal name, Family name".

I know that Debian JP project had worked to create our localized installer
for Japanese people on hamm and slink. They are included in hamm-jp and
slink-jp add-on packages. But we found that if we continue the separate work
From Debian, it may be difficult to be adopted by Debian that the enhancement 
of the installer of Debian to support multi-language or at least localized 
installation. So we have decided to not release potato-jp, and currently
we (Debian JP) do no work to create the localized installer for potato.
Some (at least one) members in JP project is now doing the translations for 
boot-floppies, and are waiting to be registered as the official member of
Debian hoping to cooperate to make the multi-lingurized installer.

(some members create another project to research the possibility of easy
installation of Debian, and other members create one other project to provide
the localized distribution based on Debian, but currently they are independent
activity from Debian JP, and I think that JP project should not have the close
relation with them, which is only my personal opinion currently,,,)

-- 
  Taketoshi Sano: <sano@debian.org>,<sano@debian.or.jp>,<kgh12351@xxxxxxxxxxx>