[vox-tech] multi-language internet-cafe-style linux box

[Dave Margolis]

I'm looking at putting together a multi-language public 
internet-browsing/e-mail box for a school project.

I plan to start out with KDE's kiosk framework (though I'm pretty open 
at this point).  KDE w/ its i18n support seems appropriate for this, but 
there may be other methods.

I'd like to see this box be able to switch languages on the fly.  The 
strategy I have envisioned for this is to have desktop-shortcut-driven 
shell scripts that would do the following:

1. Change the language settings for the desktop environment.

How do I do this programtically (i.e. without going into the KDE 
language settings in the configuration manager)?

2. Change a symlink for applications.  For example, 
/home/USER/bin/firefox would change from /usr/local/firefox_en/firefox 
to /user/local/firefox_es/firefox.  I was considering a similar approach 
for OpenOffice, if I choose to include an office app.

Is this a reasonable approach?  It will be a bit of a waste of disk 
space, but seems easier than attempting to programatically switch 
language packs and/or settings.


Any other thoughts or suggestions?  Any good links/resources?

Dave