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

[Ken Bloom]

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 11:09:06 -0800
Dave Margolis <margolisdm at earthlink.net> wrote:

> 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?

If you have the necessary i18n packages installed, then you select the
language using the LANG environment variable. For example, if I want to
run Gaim with hebrew localication, then I run
$ LANG=he_IL gaim

Because of the way in which environment variables propagate, you'll
probably need to completely log out and then log in again using the new
language. (Unless KDE has some kind of wierd DCOP way to change
languages on the fly.

--Ken Bloom

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