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

[Shae Smittle]

I completely empathize with your dislike with Kazhakase.  It is a nice
browser but it leaves a lot to be desired.  I have heard of Midori but I
find webkit to be somewhat crashy at the moment.  I hope in the near future
we can switch to a webkit based browser that is lightweight and Midori is up
on my list of programs to watch.  Let me know if you get anywhere with
finding localizations for those programs or similar replacements that can be
included.

Thanks for your interests,

Shae Smittle

On 7/5/08, Michael L'Heureux <michael.lheureux at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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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