[Localization] Language input on XO

[Sayamindu Dasgupta]

Hi,
We use XKB on the XO-1s which support Vietnamese input. However, there
might be a few hoops to jump through in order to enable the layout.

The easiest way to do this would be start up Terminal and issue the command:
setxkbmap -layout vn
To switch back to the normal US layout (if required), the command would be
setxkbmap -layout us -variant olpc

The other option would be edit /etc/sysconfig/keyboard in the laptops
and set the LAYOUT to vn and the VARIANT to basic.

Newer versions of Sugar support setting the keyboard layout from the
control panel (via a GUI), but OLPC does not ship that yet.

Thanks,
Sayamindu


On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Clytie Siddall <clytie at riverland.net.au> wrote:
> Hi everyone :)
>
> In one of my increasingly brief periods of capability, I noticed the OLPC.vn activity. It is heartwarming to see my localization work actually being used.
>
> However, on this page:
>
> http://saigonolpc.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/class-four/
>
> the instructor says they can't input Vietnamese on the XO. Is this true?
>
> Since I'm a Mac user (Vietnamese has always been available by default in OSX), I am unfamiliar with the input-system underpinnings of the XO. However, our Debian localization "task" installs an input package (one of xvnkb and x-unikey, both available) and uses the default Unicode font DejaVu (on which I collaborated to make sure it rendered Vietnamese adequately). There are also plenty of free Unicode fonts designed for Vietnamese: I generally recommend the GPL package URWVN:
>
> http://freshmeat.net/projects/urwvn/
>
> Vietnamese requires UTF-8, since it's all over the Unicode plane. The combined diacritics make Vietnamese a test case for Unicode support. However, Vietnamese input has been readily available to Linux users for some time now.
>
> How can I check that Vietnamese input is possible on the XO, and make sure it's enabled, available and obvious on laptops being issued to Vietnamese projects?
>
> Thankyou for any advice you can offer. :)
>
> from Clytie
>
> Vietnamese Free Software Translation Team
>
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>



-- 
Sayamindu Dasgupta
[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]