Trouble installing SCIM m17n in Puppy 3.01

[Swarup]

I've just installed Abiword 2.6.2. The situation is certainly far better than it was. But unfortunately, at least in my case, the problem does not appear to be resolved. Because those very problems I described two posts back (#1-3), rear their ugly head any time a word is written following a mark of punctuation such as a comma, full stop, semicolon etc. And also after any word which is written using Roman/Latin (i.e. English) script. So while "लेकिन" appears correct if written in isolation ie as the first word in an Abiword file, it does not appear correct following any punctuation mark or word written with Roman script.

There is something different about punctuation marks which makes the font rendering immediately following them respond differently. What I have noticed over the years is that in most and perhaps virtually all cases, the devanagari fonts borrow their punctuation marks from Roman fonts. And in so doing, something seems to affect rendering. Have you experienced this? Any ideas or solutions? Would the issue resolve by switching to Xfce?

[RR Koothady]

Swarupji,

Xfce will not solve the problem. However, can you be alittle more clear? May be, can you post a screen shot of your problem?

I have noted Abi 2.6.2 behaves a little different from text editors and other apps. For example, when I press , in abi for the first time , appears but on the second time a + sign appears with hi-baraha open. This is not noticed when I type in mousepad or in text editors like Geany. I think this is a bug in abi 2.6.2.

Excepting Abi - even Firefox make the inputs correctly. The same Abi bug is noted for Tamil and other Indic languages also.

So, may I suggest, use the Text Editors as for now for typing, then copy paste to abi for fomating?

If this is a bug in Abi, then this is a problem in all Linux distros, not necessarily Puppy.

Ramesh

[Swarup]

Rameshji:

Xfce will not solve the problem. However, can you be alittle more clear? May be, can you post a screen shot of your problem?

I'm still looking for the screen shot command--as soon as I find it I'll do that. But for now I'll just say that all the words appear properly unless they appear directly after a punctuation mark or English word. Then it occurs with the errors I've described. I just can't use Abiword in this situation.

Add: I found out how to do the screen shot, and will attach it below.

I have noted Abi 2.6.2 behaves a little different from text editors and other apps. For example, when I press , in abi for the first time , appears but on the second time a + sign appears with hi-baraha open. This is not noticed when I type in mousepad or in text editors like Geany. I think this is a bug in abi 2.6.2.

If this is a bug in Abi, then this is a problem in all Linux distros, not necessarily Puppy.

Yes, I do think Abi 2.6.2 still has bugs, and is not able to manage Indic (and perhaps other) fonts correctly.

Excepting Abi - even Firefox make the inputs correctly. The same Abi bug is noted for Tamil and other Indic languages also.

I have been trying to get the Firefox download site to work--the one you gave for the latest Firefox pet for Puppy. But I'll have to try later, it's not downloading right now. I am very interested to test it though.

Add: I have tried around 7 or 8 times to start the Firefox download from that site. --Don't know, it doesn't seem to work. Is there perhaps any other site I could try?

So, may I suggest, use the Text Editors as for now for typing, then copy paste to abi for fomatting?

You are right! The simple Text Editors--Geany and Leafpad--work perfectly. And my problem would have been solved by this but for one point-- I have to be able to increase the font size as I work because I am not doing this Hindi work alone. I work in conjunction with an older colleague who is seeing the work as it goes on via remote desktop. He sits in a different place, and has his own computer and cannot see the small size font of these text editors. I tried in the Seamonkey Composer html editor just now because it has ability to increase font size, but it does not process the fonts at all properly. It is just as Abi 2.4.x was.

So I am hoping that Firefox will work on both counts: (1) it will render the fonts correctly even after English words or punctuation; and (2) it will have capability to increase font size. Given that Abi and Seamonkey editors are not working right, and the Geany/Leaf cannot increase font size, my only hope is that the Firefox will work.

Please see in the below screenshot, the first line I've written is completely proper. In the second line, I've put a full stop "|", and due to that all the words coming after it are completely wrong. And the same in the third line-- I've written the English word "dog", and after that all the Hindi words are wrong. And of course, punctuation and English words are both needed in my documents, I can't do without them.

[Aitch]

Swarupji

Hello again, this thread just popped to the top of my list & I find your question about screenshots being unanswered, so; -

Menu/Graphic/mtPaint- snapshot screen capture

I believe this works in most versions though I am using 2.14R today

Aitch

[Irihapeti]

I've been experimenting further with the scim-bridge approach. I've been able to get the m17n tables working with scim-bridge, thus giving the 41 languages. Also, scim-anthy for Japanese also works.

I still have some experimenting/testing to do before I can write up the steps needed. That's unlikely to be this week, because I have a work task that will need a lot of my time. But watch this space...

[Swarup]

I've been experimenting further with the scim-bridge approach. I've been able to get the m17n tables working with scim-bridge...

That is fantastic news! I can't believe it. Just wonderful.

That means, using the scim-bridge installation, we m17n users will have access to use OO writer, right? Which is incredibly good news, as OO Writer at least in Ubuntu, renders all my fonts correctly.

One question: Is this only for the 2.x version of Puppy, or does it apply to 3.01 as well? Whatever version of Puppy it is for, I am ready to go with that. If it can be used in 3.01, that's great. If not, I'll just install 2.x version-- no problem.

I still have some experimenting/testing to do before I can write up the steps needed. That's unlikely to be this week, because I have a work task that will need a lot of my time. But watch this space...

I know you must be busy...but if you could even just put down the steps here asap in simple way, without further experimentation. (Please, please.) I personally am under strong pressure to get this working in Puppy, or else I will have to purchase a new computer. Because Ubuntu is just too slow to serve our needs on my old lappy. So Puppy is my only hope to keep this computer alive. Time is of the essence! I'll understand if you can't-- but even a few quick notes here could be enough to save a life.

[Irihapeti]

OK, Swarup, seeing as you insist, I shall relent a little and let you have my draft notes. All this has been done in Puppy 2.17. It may well work in 3.01, but I have no way of verifying it myself. Be warned, there is quite a bit of compiling involved here, but if a newcomer to Linux like me can do it, it can't be too hard.

Please note, I was testing things in Abiword 2.4, merely to see if characters appeared. I have absolutely zero knowledge of Indic languages and therefore I can't tell you if the correct characters appeared in response to particular keystrokes. That part of it I leave to you to determine.

Edit: attachment deleted. New version in a later post.

[Swarup]

Hey, thanks, Irihapeti. That's great.
I've downloaded and read through your notes. Now, there are some lines in the instructions which I wasn't exactly sure of in terms of what I would have to do. Mainly the lines where it says, "compile such-and-such file". For example, "Compile scim-tables. This needs no special configuration to compile." When you say "compile scim-tables", are there certain command lines I would need to put into a terminal window in order to get this done? I have done a little compiling in the past, but only with line-by-line command line instructions. I guess I really wouldn't know what to type on my own.

Also, you wrote that, "It appears that scim-m17n and its libs/database can be run with scim-bridge, but not with scim-tables as well." But I was a little confused about this, because in the installation notes you've given, it sounds like both scim-tables and m17n are being installed.

I think what I will probably do is download 2.17 and install it on a separate partition to test the install. This afterall is the environment in which you developed the technique and it therefore has the greatest chance of working there. If that works, then I'll try it in 3.01. I suppose another option would be to try it in 3.01, by booting up with the pfix=ram boot option and making a new pup_save file to test it.

[Irihapeti]

Swarup:

When I say "compile <package> with no special configuration", I mean that you cd to the source code directory and type:

Code: Select all

./configure
make
make install

Some files need special ./configure lines, as I've mentioned.

As a matter of fact, I've found that one can run scim-tables and m17n at the same time. But, as I said, this is all rather experimental and I'm finding things out as I go along. If you have a separate partition for experimental stuff, you can test things for yourself. Maybe you'll soon be telling the rest of us how to do things.

[Swarup]

Irihapeti:

Thank you for the education and reminder about how to compile. As I say, I have done it once or twice before, but always as a cookbook recipe follow-the-dotted-line sort of thing. And so didn't realize there was a standard set of commands like that which together are know as "compiling". Very good to remember though, for the future.

--I'll try doing the install tomorrow, and see how it goes.

Rameshji: I was able to do the download of Firefox tonite; but could not do the install because I didn't have enough room in the partition. In the morning I'll run gparted, created some more space, then install Firefox and see how that renders the fonts.

I've also tested Abiword 2.6.3 in Ubuntu 8.04 tonite, and found that it has the very same font rendering errors as 2.6.2 in Puppy has. So this is clearly an issue with Abiword. This way of thinking has a positive side though, because in the very same way, if OOo Writer was working in Ubuntu for rendering, then by extension it should also work in Puppy if I can get Irihapeti's bridge installation to work. The only issue that would then remain is to see whether OOo Writer runs significantly faster for me in Puppy than in Ubuntu. OOo is itself pretty resource-demanding; I'm just hoping that Puppy is so much more efficient than Ubuntu, that OOo can run well in Puppy on my box. Optomistic thinking.

[wangji]

I am not hindi user at all -vietnamese instead !

just to add

scim connects to scim-table thru scim-module-table (table.so )

scim connects to m17n thru scim-m17n (m17n.so )

so they are not interdependent and one can put them either in scim or scim-bridge ! to activate both -using one at a time of course !

in vietnamese abiword runs ok with scim but has lots of problems with the 2 other typing pkg : unikey as well as xvnkb

to compile table ,use make-scim-table

[Aitch]

Hi all

I keep getting this thread pop up & am very interested in how it's going

Puppy's globalisation is very important, I believe

This maybe of interest, especially to Swarupji, who seems to 'have the bit between his teeth' if I may put it that way, without being offensive
--- ---- ---- ----

From Barry's developer news archive; NOTE 2005!!

http://puppylinux.com/news/news2005a.htm

29July05

When you compile, with this general method:

# ./configure
# make
# make install &> loginstall.txt

Be sure to append that "&> loginstall.txt" so that you know where files get installed, as it must be remembered that Puppy running from live-CD only has persistence of storage for files written to /root, /etc and /usr -- if necessary, "configure" options can be used to control destination paths.

The PC that you test this on must have a Linux swap partition, or failing that heaps of RAM, as the C/C++ compiler needs a lot of space for transient storage.
As I "threw together" the contents of usr_devx.sfs, there are files in it that are not needed -- in some cases I didn't know what a file in Vector/Mandrake was for, or was uncertain, so copied it to usr_dvex.sfs just in case -- you can help here if you have experience in what packages are needed for compiling, by identifying files that are not needed. I think that there are some header files and support files for some application and library packages that don't need to be there.
At bootup, if Puppy finds /mnt/home/usr_devx.sfs exists (same place as the pupxxx file), it gets mounted on /.usr (invisible directory) and by unionfs gets mounted on /usr. So, you can see exactly what is in usr_devx.sfs by looking in /.usr (read only). You could also copy it elsewhere to experiment with modifying it and then create another usr_devx.sfs file. Say that you have copied /.usr to /mnt/home/tmp/.usr, and edited it, then you can turn that into a squashfs file like this:

# cd /mnt/home/tmp
# cp -a /.usr ./.usr
...modify .usr...
# mksquashfs .usr usr_devx.sfs
# mv -f usr_devx.sfs ../

28July05

Some very exciting news. So far, applications for Puppy have been compiled on another host distro, most recently Vector Linux 5.0STD, before that Mandrake 9.2.
Some of the regular Forum contributors, especially Peter Siag, Jesse Liley and Bladehunter, have investigated various means of compiling from within Puppy.
There has been a great deal of interest in this.

A couple of days ago I discovered that I can mount more than one squashfs file onto /usr ...well, that is interesting! Bladehunter had created a development squashfs file that he mounted on /opt/tools, but now I realised that we could put all the development files directly onto /usr, which is where they normally are expected to be.
Just to try it out, I grabbed any files out of Vector Linux that looked like they might be required for compiling a package, also grabbed some files out of Mandrake -- mix-and-match, although there is risk in this. I ended up with a 38M file named "usr_devx.sfs", and I modified Puppy so that if usr_devx.sfs is in the same location as the pup001 file (in /mnt/home) then it will get mounted automatically on /usr.
Note, this is designed to work also on Option-2 (full) hard drive installed Puppy, in which case place usr_devx.sfs at the top level, "/", in the Puppy partition.

As far as I can tell this is still relevant, so you may find it useful

Note also, OpenOffice full with language support, was used in ChubbyPuppy wayback, but I don't know if it's updated, it's probably a pet now

Aitch

[RR Koothady]

Hey Irihapeti, wangji,Aitch,Swarup !

This is becoming more and more interesting. Wonderful!

Ramesh

[Aitch]

Hey Irihapeti, wangji,Aitch,Swarup !

This is becoming more and more interesting. Wonderful!

Ah, yes, Rameshji,

However I have to reveal an ulterior motive

I believe it is important for potential use in global disaster situations, as an ingredient in a Rescue CD version of Puppy' for implementation to disaster-hit areas, like International Rescue, yes?

There is a thread here

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=4185

I am also promoting this elsewhere as I am a bit of an environmental & human rights activist & see this as important work to help restore the global balance

If you see my other posts you will see I not only post these sorts of threads, but also humour



Aitch
Edited name

[Swarup]

Thanks for the info on compiling, Aitch. It will definitely come in handy.

[Aitch]

Swarupji

A word of warning, though, (re 2005 post)

Barry has changed to T2 on later puppy versions in 2006/7 [2.16>?] so this may have been amended

Aitch

[Swarup]

Rameshji had mentioned that the font rendering was proper in Firefox 3 Beta5. Well, I've downloaded and installed Firefox, but I can't find its text editor! With Seamonkey, under Menu -> Documents there is an option for "Seamonkey composer html editor". But with Firefox, under Menu -> Documents there is no such option. And in the Firefox web browser, I don't find any such option under any of the toolbar dropdown menus, for opening a text editor. So where is the option to open such a Firefox text window where I can test the Hindi font rendering?

[Aitch]

So where is the option to open such a Firefox text window

Taskbar/view/Page Source

Control U also, I think

Aitch

[Swarup]

So where is the option to open such a Firefox text window

Taskbar/view/Page Source

Control U also, I think

Thanks--I just went to that window, but it seems to be a text replication of the browser window, rather than a users window. That is, as far as I can tell, one can't type in it. How does one open a window one can actually type in?

[Aitch]

Swarupji

I can't remember as I'm on my windoze box now

but if you edit/select all/copy, then paste into an editor

I believe puppy has an html editor installed or as a pet, Komposer;

if it's not an option in OO

Maybe

http://www.wellminded.com/puppy/pupsearch.html

You'll have to search, sorry

BTW this page is useful if you're doing HTML/web page stuff

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd

This may be useful, also

http://www.linguistlist.org/sp/Fonts.html

If ever you work in windoze there's always Barry's original Eve;

http://www.goosee.com/

Aitch