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+--- Thread: Virtual Immersion (/thread-182.html)
Virtual Immersion - krusher - 2006-09-21
Hey Guys. I know from other topics that there's a few Linux users here, and I wanted to gague interest in something I've been doing - I've been a Slackware and Debian user since '97 but recently installed the new Ubuntu distro and it's amazing the lenghts they've gone to to make it user-friendly. Japanese support used to be a nightmare, but with Ubuntu it's a dream. So, about two months ago I decided to put my whole OS into Japanese, almost everything is localized for Japanese, and I have a cool Firefox plugin that does on-the-fly localizations of tons of popular websites that don't have Japanese support (Youtube for example) to avoid just being cheap and just loading Firefox and reading english pages. The other thing I'm doing is making a EDICT / JFC formatted flashcard file of vocabulary I ripped straight out of common programs, dialogs, error messages, etc. The two things I want to do is release that file when it's complete and write a mini-howto on how to Japanize Ubuntu, and maybe after that writing a html 'walk trough' of sorts that has a nice index so, say you were in firefox and had to change something, you could easily get to translations / vocabulary lists of the edit -> prefs dialog. Just after two months of doing this it's worked wonders for me and I think others should do it - so I was wondering how interesting this sounds to others and weather I should go ahead a write / release those files.
Cheers :)
Virtual Immersion - nmkohi - 2006-09-22
Hi Krusher,
I would be VERY interested in a Linux/Unix oriented vocab list and/or annotated
screenshots.
I don't run Linux in Japanese, but I would be interested in knowing my way around
the Japanese OS for potential future career prospects
I might be tempted to switch to Japanese if I had a decent howto, but I spend
all day at work messing around with Linux and want my home computers to just work...
I use debian but I guess ubuntu instructions should be similar.
Virtual Immersion - ファブリス - 2006-09-22
Sounds very cool, krusher.
I wish I could do that but I've never spent much time with Linux installs. Recently the linux packages seem to have very good looking and functioning user interfaces so I could see myself trying Ubuntu at home when I have the time.
Will your "how to" pickup right after the standard Ubuntu installation ?
Just curious, how does the input work on this installation, is it similar to Windows IME or do you have the "direct mapping" of the keyboard to the Japanese phonetics ?
Virtual Immersion - krusher - 2006-09-24
I know exactly what you mean about wanting your computers to just work
I will release the flashcard files seperatly aswell so anyone can grab them, I figured I'd make a master one, then smaller ones for different applications like Firefox, etc. Installing Ubuntu is really easy now, they've gone to great lenghts to make it user friendly, it's easier than windows to install and your hardware will probably work perfectly straight away. About the IME, it works like the windows one, I atcually have a Japanese laptop, but I think most Japanese people don't even use that direct map thing - I wouldn't have a clue how it works. So my howto will pick up after you've installed Ubuntu, getting the IME going is pretty easy and adding all the other Japanese support isn't too hard either, but I want to cover more things like installing JWPce using WINE, installing all the firefox plugins like Rikaichan and Japanize, and any other software that might be useful to Japanese students. Once all this is done, Japanese will be your users language prefrence, not the default system language, so you can set Japanese as default for your user and also change it back at the Login screen - one other thing you can do is have another user with English as their default language so if you get stuck and can't figure it out with the dictionary or rikaichan you can hit the 'lock screen' button which loads the screensaver, and use the 'change user' button to go to your English account. So basically we just need to install support for Japanese and we can use it if we want to and always have English there for when we're doing difficult tasks where we need to read the errors properly, etc. So I'll start by making that flashcard file complete, I was just going to automatically rip the vocab out of the programs, but that will be way too much so I'm doing it manually, I'm also ignoring the grammar, inflected verbs, etc, and just having the word in it's plain form, so I'm not translating the whole text strings or anything. If one of you guys are keen to try setting up this system, I can walk you through what you've gotta do. Any other feedback about other things I should include would be great aswell. Cheers guys
Here's a screenshot of my desktop: http://treshna.com/~krusher/shot.png
I often paste things into that text area box that I cut and pasted from dialogs and emails, IM's, etc so I can use rikaichan.
Virtual Immersion - _Qbe_ - 2006-11-02
Over the last year or so I've made some attempts and "Japanizing" my Slackware installs (been a user since 1995), but yikes. Just, yikes.
Last week I was reading All Japanese All The Time's suggestion about using a Japanese OS, was inspired to give Japanese Linux another try and thought, "Why not just get a Japanese Linux distribution, and skip all the fiddling around?" There's no way I can install a Japanese distribution as the only OS on my system, but VMWare Player will let me run one in a virtual machine. So I did a search for Japanese distributions on Distrowatch and found a few candidates.
Vine Linux. One CD, English installer, but X wouldn't start once it was installed.
Momonga Linux has a prebuilt VMWare image on its site, but 5 downloads from 2 different locations all turned up with bad CRCs. I finally downloaded all 6 CDs and installed it myself. It has an English installer and lets you choose among numerous languages for GNOME, Japanese included (of course). It installed and started up without a problem (after I realized that I needed a virtual drive of 6GB or more). I'm using it right now.
Plamo Linux is a Slackware-based distribution. My previous attempts at Japanizing Slackware turned me away, but only for a few days. I'm downloading it now and plan to give it a try.
It's really interesting to be using a Japanese OS and have to figure out how to get things done. Lots of fun!