[Rule] Lightweight graphical configuration tools & suggested apps for a 100% non-English system

[Michael L'Heureux]

Thanks for the reply!

After installing the appropriate locale files, apps which are  
localised (Pidgin, Synaptic Package Manager, AbiWord, etc.)  
successfully appear in Arabic in UL.   I think that most of the  
others may have localisation support, but have simply not been  
localised to Arabic yet (especially since Kazhakase is available in  
Japanese).

Unfortunately, I'm not able to do the translation myself.  I've sent  
an email to the Arabeyes localisation project asking if they'd be  
willing to help with UbuntuLite in general, but otherwise I don't  
have any idea of who else might be able to do it.

Any English in the UI will present some challenges since my end-users  
can only read Arabic script.  I can see this being a generalised  
problem if UbuntuLite is to be used on underpowered PC's in  
developing countries whose languages aren't written with Latin  
characters.  Obviously this is impossible to deal with in an  
overarching way (except by maybe writing a huge set of aliases and  
translated manpages, which would be outside the scope of this  
project); so GUI tools are probably a better bet.

I'm not too sure whats out there that doesn't have too many package  
dependencies.  Maybe VASMCC?  I don't know much about it though.   
IMO, no need to force this into 0.8.

I've submitted a couple of bugs, as you suggested, in order to keep  
track on the progress of these.

Off-topic, have you heard of Midori (http://software.twotoasts.de/ 
index.php?/pages/midori_summary.html), it seems like it might shape  
up to be a really good alternative to Kazhakase in UL.  Personally, I  
find Kazhahase's GUI annoying and unconfigurable.

ML

On 5-Jul-08, at 3:56 PM, Shae Smittle wrote:

> Of those packages that lack localization support, I backported  
> Kazehakase and PCManFM to UL.  Is there a problem in the packages  
> that prevent localization support or is it a problem with  
> upstream?  If it is a bug in the packages, I will try to dig around  
> for a fix.  Furthermore I understand your pain with a complete lack  
> of some basic gui configuration programs.  I originally slated work  
> on getting gui programs to configure stuff to 0.9 because of early  
> problems geting 0.8 out the door, but if you are willing to help  
> compile the list of needed programs for UL I will consider a  
> "freeze exception" for adding them to 0.8 since my work on an iso  
> has stalled.

> My honest suggestion is if this is your problem with Ubuntulite,  
> help contribute to fixing it.  I guess sometimes I am a little  
> shortsighted in terms of determining what is necessary because I am  
> a native English speaker and think nothing about just using the  
> commandline for now.  But if it provides a significant barrier to  
> Non-English use, I will certainly try to work on it, but help is  
> really needed.  Furthermore I suggest fileing a bug against  
> Ubuntulite to help track the progress of the bug.
>
> Sincerly,
> Shae Smittle
> Ubuntulite Project Manager
>
> On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Michael L'Heureux  
> <michael.lheureux at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I'm setting up some old donated laptops (400-600MHz, 4-6GB HD,  
> 96-256MB RAM) for educational use in Egypt.  These will be used by  
> people who have no previous exposure to computers and cannot read  
> English.  So the goals are as follows:
>
> - Set up an extremely light-weight system that can comfortably  
> browse the web, use basic office apps and handle basic digital  
> media formats (PDF, audio & video)
> - Set up a very easy-to-use, easy-to-navigate & intuitive desktop  
> environment in Arabic
> - Install a set of graphical configuration tools (in Arabic)
>
> I've played with UbuntuLite (which is, I guess, the latest version  
> of RULE?), but I found that there are practically no GUI-based  
> config tools (without reading English, end-users will not be able  
> to use the command line) and even after installing all Arabic  
> localisation packages with apt-get,some key apps are not localised  
> (Kazehakase, PCManFM, LeafPad).
>
> The problem that I've found is that (with some exceptions) the only  
> packages for Linux that tend to be translated into Arabic are the  
> popular, mainstream (ie. heavy) ones.  All main parts of XFCE (and  
> therefore XUbuntu) are localised into Arabic, which is great, but  
> the speed difference with UbuntuLite is noticeable.
>
> I've been thinking of trying the steps to trim down KDE that were  
> posted in this list a while ago...
>
> http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F% 
> 2Fwww.guiadohardware.net%2Ftutoriais%2Fusando-kde-micros-32-mb-ram% 
> 2F&langpair=pt%7Cen&hl=pt-BR&ie=UTF-8
>
> .... but I've always found KDE to be much more clunky (and less  
> simplified/easy-to-use) than GNOME or XFCE and IceWM, etc. to be  
> even worse.
>
> Any other suggestions?
>
> I've been following discussions on the list for a while and am  
> hoping that someone out there might be able to offer me some advice  
> on this.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Michael
>
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