[Debian-in-workers] The story so far...

[Ganesan R]

On Mon, Apr 19, 2004 at 04:47:32PM -0400, Jaldhar H. Vyas wrote:
> Here is a list of India-related software that is already packaged in
> Debian (sid.)
> 
> iiimf-htt-le-indic        - Indic language engine for iiimf-htt-server
>                             [What is this?  Did anyone try it?)
> kde-i18n-bn               - Bengali translations for KDE
> kde-i18n-hi               - Hindi translations for KDE
> kde-i18n-ta               - Tamil translations for KDE
> openoffice.org-l10n-hi-in - Hindi language package for openoffice.org
> tamil-gtk2im              - Tamil input method for GTK-2
> ttf-bangla-fonts          - Bengali truetype fonts
> ttf-malayalam-fonts       - Malayalam truetype fonts
> ttf-tamil-fonts           - Tamil truetype fonts
> 
> Did I miss anything?

Some indian language localization seems to be included in GNOME.
I think that's about it; pretty pathetic isn't it :-(.

> * Indian language packs for mozilla.  Are there any?

There are rendering problems for Tamil in most versions of Mozilla. There is
a Mozilla branch called Tamizha which I hope to package at some point of
time. I was hoping that the branch will merge with the Mozilla trunk, so that 

> 
> * Indlinux.orgs' milan live CD has a lot of translations for GNOME.  Have
>   they been integrated into Debians' GNOME packages? (http://www.indlinux.org/)

Debian GNOME does appear to be localized for Tamil; when I open gedit with
LANG=ta_IN.UTF-8, I get localized menus. The font rendering seems
to be weird but the translations are definitely there.

> * Ankur project has software and GNOME translations for Bengali.  How
>   much of this needs to be added to Debian?  (http://www.banglinux.org/)

No idea. 

> * Sarovar hosts some open source software relating to India.  Anything
>   worth packaging? (http://www.sarovar.org/)

No idea again.

> * Hindi dictionary.  Is this useful? worth packaging?
>   (http://hindidict.sourceforge.net)

Haven't checked but seems useful. 

> * The new Debian Installer.  Can we localize it in Indian languages?  My
>   understanding is that the big problem is that it is currently text-mode
>   only.  I don't think Indian languages can be displayed on the console.

It's very unlikely that we can work with Indian languages in text mode. Text
rendering is pretty complex and unlikely to work in text-mode.

> Well that's what I have so far.  If you have anything to add please do.

There are many Knoppix based CDs (like IndLinux, Knoppix Tamil and I am sure
many others). I think we should officially contact those projects and get
their efforts included in base debian.

Ganesan