I forward the announcement for Bestix, a live CD with support for Arabic. OOo 2.0.x with Arabic user interface has not yet entered Debian, and is therefore not (yet) included, but should be included as soon as it becomes available. Nevertheless OOo 2.0.2 is on the CD, and it is possible to enter text Right-to-Left with Arabic fonts, either ttf-freefont or ttf-arabeyes.
At present I am still struggling with a bug in the Arabic support, related to font-handling. I realize this is not your problem, and no fault of arabeyes, but I thought maybe if there is someone on this list with experience of using Debian/icewm maybe they can help me. The problem is that the menu in icewm includes a mixture of Arabic and European fonts, and that the European fonts are not displayed. The result is a menu that in some places is devoid of text, so that for the novice user it may be unclear what program they are selecting. The Arabic fonts look fine. I suspect icewm is choosing a font set that includes Arabic fonts but does not include Western fonts. Why it would do this is a mystery to me, the question in my mind is what I should do about it. Any suggestions are welcome. Conrad ------------------------------------------------------------------- Bestix, a new Kanotix-based live CD, is now available for download. ISO-image and package lists are here: ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/skolelinux/knoppixes/bestix/ The goal of this system is twofold. 1) Present a simple system, with a simple user interface. 2) Localization in every available language. More detailed description: 1) The system is simple in the sense that only a small set of programs is included: OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 Firefox 1.5.0 Gaim 1.5.0 Skype 1.2.0 Xchat 2.6.1 VLC 0.8.4 The window manager is icewm with XP theme. The idea is to have a kind of Internet-Cafe-CD with the most popular programs. People who find the wealth of programs with Skolelinux/Knoppix overwhelming, may well be pleased with this simpler presentation. Although the program set is small, the system can easily be expanded thanks to the magic of unionfs. An installation dialog suggests additional software that is then downloaded and "installed" into RAM. Alternatively, people can go to the klik website (in the Firefox toolbar), and choose their applications there. In principle (with a cheatcode), you can download and install your additional applications on USB key, or on the hard disk. As with any Knoppix-based system, you can install the system to hard disk with knoppix-installer. 2) Localization and its problems The original intention of this CD was to create a multi-lingual live CD, with as many translations of OpenOffice.org as possible. Thanks to a recent collaboration between the Debian and Ubuntu OpenOffice.org teams, the openoffice.org-l10n packages have been purged of redundancies, and now every openoffice.org-l10n package that is included with Debian is also on the CD. To the extent that translations are available for the other programs, they are also included. The grub boot menu permits you to easily boot into the language of your choice -- if you find that your language is not supported, despite the availability of free software for that language, please let me know. Building on this basis, I have attempted to construct localized menus for icewm, but it is here that the CD reveals its weaknesses. While most western European languages are (I hope) well-supported, there are problems elsewhere, connected to the way icewm/Debian handles fonts. For example, when the menu includes both Arabic and Western fonts, the Western fonts "disappear". I have not yet solved this problem, and I would be happy to hear suggestions leading to a solution. Not every non-European language has problems of this kind -- for example, Chinese looks just fine. In many cases, the translations of the menu are incomplete. If you are dissatisfied, please write me, and I will include your corrections. The CD includes scim as a character input method for Chinese / Japanese / Korean. There has been some discussion between myself and my collaborators whether this is the best character input method or whether uim should be preferred. If you have opinions in this matter, please let me know. As usual, your complaints and criticism, as well as encouragement, are welcome. Conrad Newton
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