Hi On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Tom Davies <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi :) > > Many governments already produce their own linux version for their people to > use. In many cases governments even employ people to help with such > developments. Often Ubuntu is the chosen linux distro to work from but some > countries choose other versions of linux, China and Turkey famously > developed their own from scratch. Actually, there have two local distro left in China, which are getting funding from gov, all are based on fedora or saying rpm based. > > Perhaps we just need to support advertising or promoting the Ubuntu versions > where they are not widely known? Perhaps we could get links to their sites > from the main Ubuntu homepage? I think the download speed is a matter for many end users, for those newbies, the incomplete language is not a good experience, my daily job need communicate with those kind of users, and they always compain this to me. :) Imagine, you're demonstrating a live system to a guy who want give it a try, and he find everything is so smooth(here I mean localization), then what dose he feel? > > DistroWatch is an excellent place to look-up these different versions as it > puts a lot of work into keeping their data up-to-date, man other sites look > better but fail to be so up-to-date and comprehensive > http://distrowatch.com/ > > From their front page for today i got to these 2 new releases earlier this > week ... > http://www.epidemiclinux.org/index.php?lang=pt-BR&option=com_content&Itemid=50 > http://www.mopslinux.org/news/81-mopslinux-70-beta1.html > > As another example a quick search for "Spain" on their site, using their > search feature gave these results > http://distrowatch.com/search.php?origin=Spain > http://distrowatch.com/index.php?distribution=molinux > http://distrowatch.com/index.php?distribution=guadalinex > > Also scroll down their Ubuntu page to their "Related Web Sites" in the table > there > http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=Ubuntu > Perhaps this would be useful to link to from the main Ubuntu homepage? > > > In Community Documentation there are instructions for anyone wanting to > create their own Customised Cd although i think it needs translating into > human languages as even my own edits of it are almost completely > incomprehensible techno-babble > https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomization > https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomizationFromScratch >
> > I hope something here helps? > Good luck and many regards from > Tom :) > > > > > > > > > > ________________________________ > From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected]; [email protected] > Sent: Wed, 16 December, 2009 6:31:56 > Subject: Considerations about official localized editions of Live CDs > > Hi everyone, > > It is a proven fact that Ubuntu, the Linux for Human Beings, is a great > GNU/Linux distribution, which enables more and more people all over the > world enjoy free software, share their knowledge and joys. > > Being an user of Ubuntu, I must say all the work done by the community and > Canonical is awesome; but as a contributor from a not English spoken > country, I would be extremely happy to see we can launch localized edition > Live CDs, in other words language specific edition Live CDs for users that > have different languages and preferences. > > For different languages there always be different cultures, and this caused > to different user preferences. There are many people don't have enough > knowledge about English to use a not localized computer in this world. A > user of this kind will find it essential to download and install many thing > to complete their language support when they installed Ubuntu from our Live > CD in the past and at present. Most of these users have some common usage of > software, so install these "language preferred" software is another required > task before the system is usable. Do you think such a thing is very > annoying? Yes, users would be much happier when they find an operating > system designed to be very considerate. > > We have spent lots of man power on improving the process of installation > including language support, and a GNU/Linux distribution always ships not > only a system but also a set of selected applications, but I think things > are still not perfect for us. Microsoft and Apple make their operating > systems have different language's editions, and as a non-native English > speaker, I 'd like to say it worth. Users prefer to have a fully localized > environment in every corner they can see from the very beginning. But for > Ubuntu we can only add translations of software that used during > installation. The live session is an exciting feature, but I always here > somebody ask "why are those all in English?""is there a fully translated > Ubuntu available?" I've explained our current situation times by times, and > these people always return to say "Ubuntu is great, but if there is a fully > translated one, things will be even better." The way to solve such problem, > is having a language specific edition. > > So there are teams and individuals appear to make their distributions based > on Ubuntu, or we are regarding them as Ubuntu Derivatives. The existence of > these derivatives help us spread our distribution in the positive side, but > there are really negative side, it's not just a problem on user choice, like > between Fedora and Ubuntu, but something influence our build of community. > Those derivatives always not only ship language packs but also some small > tweaks for specific user groups (not like Mint, which makes some bigger > differences). Due to many reasons, there always be breakages and bugs that > never existed in official Live CD. Users have to choose a provider that he > or she can trust when they are about to turn to Ubuntu but can hardly accept > to start from a global edition Live CD with minor support of his or her > language. But who can make sure the quality of these derivatives? Perhaps > nobody can tell. For the derivatives provided by non-profit organizations, > situations are better than those profit-driven teams. I know some editions > have changes that bring security holes, ship Ads (e.g. hard change on > Firefox home page which point to a site full of Ads), and of course some of > them refused to open there changes. Yes, users are able to drop those > unwilling changes, but why he or she tries a derivative if they like to deal > with such issues? We may still say it doesn't matter a lot up to here. Then, > most of those derivative's authors don't supply support even though some of > them have make changes and cause problems, and even some of them push the > support work to local community deliberately. Apart from general questions, > these users always ask about problems caused by derivative's changes. It is > an annoying and overwhelming job to answer, even just tell them "to use the > official one" can be an awful thing that few people like to do. This lead to > discount to our community, and those users may think Ubuntu and our > community are not friendly because most of them don't know the real > situation exactly. > > Making official localized Live CDs can also lead to a new stage of Live CD > usage. A Live CD can be used as a demo, a rescue system, or even a temporary > working environment, the live session is a feature that many users like very > much. As mentioned before, a not English spoken user can find some very > limited support in the current Live CD. We need to admit it can hardly be > used to do anything other than run a installation. Even for a demo purpose, > other will always ask about the nearly all English environment. I've said in > the beginning of this piece, users prefer to seeing that every corner he or > she can reach is localized. To achieve a better usage of Live CD, a full > localization is critical for these users. As for languages that need input > method to input characters, for instance CJK languages (Chinese, Japanese > and Korean), without a full featured input method, their usage of Live CD > can be even more limited. It is really hard to input these complex scripts, > though we have ibus with general m17n support by default, but you can only > type characters one by one, such thing look very ridiculous for nowadays > input method development and usage. When you cannot input a sentence, how > can you make it even if you just want to search the web for some articles > via live session? > > Apart from the meanings of official localized Live CDs above, users can save > time on downloading and installing language support and perhaps other common > software using a localized Live CD. For example, to complete a basic > language support of Chinese needs around 100MiB to be downloaded, such a > size only count in the language packs and input method without pulling in > any other common software like StarDict to land on the system. With a > localized Live CD, users can have a usable environment to be installed when > they can't access a fast Internet connection, or even without a connection, > such feature is obviously welcomed by many users who have desired it for > long. With a fully localized environment, we can simplify user's > configuration process, and make it really almost ready-to-use once > installed. > > Making the localized Live CDs don't need any changes on our most > infrastructures, it is just a matter of default selection of software in the > CD. This will cause some more work for CD image team, translation > exportation and our ISO building facilities, but I think it worth it. The > intention of default package sets and some QA work can be done by the LoCo > teams. > > We can't provide Live CDs for all languages, especially at the very > beginning, but starting with having a try for some languages that have > special need of care and a big amount of potential users is worthwhile. We > can accumulate experience and make the process better. Windows and Macs can > have language specific editions, why we can't? > > Providing official localized editions can be a big step forward on spreading > Ubuntu and free software to the world. The progress of making it out is > another try on the cooperation of development community and local > communities. Ubuntu is Linux for Human Beings, I think such an action is > really to that point, which will benefit a lot of users throughout the > world. > > > Best regards, > Aron Xu > > > -- > ubuntu-translators mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-translators > > -- ubuntu-translators mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-translators
