Re: [tlug] Suse blues

["Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon" <ronfaxon@example.com>]

>Part of the problem is knowing how to do it systematically.  Fabian
>Sensei's article is so long, it is not clear where to start.  Also, it
>SOUNDS like the instructions are for when a person  wants to add Japanese
>to a non Japanese installation.  It seems that you and I started out in
>Japanese; I have done both ways...
>
>
>>Also being a SuSe 9.0 user and also having a system that I installed in
>>English that I haven't had luck with Japanese yet - I dragged an old 6GB
>>hard drive out of the closet and plugged it into a test computer to try
>>installing SuSe again in Japanese mode.  Watching the installation
>>closely, I realize d that there are several components to Japanese.
>>Whereas the English language install only used the first two of the six
>>disks (no DVD in that computer), the Japanese install pulls stuff off of
>>all six disks!  After the install was finished, I opened up OpenOffice
>>Writer.... hit <Shift>+<Space> and there it was!  The hiragana "a" I'd
>>heard of!  "Click-click-click" Oh.... Japanese!  Banzai!  Banzai!!
>>Banzai!!!
>>
>This is you or someone else?  It seems like someone whrote that to you and
>the bellow is your response?
>

All of the letter was from me.  What I did was to try a new install in 
Japanese - and that worked out fine.  Then - I went to another computer 
that had been installed with the setting in English - and tried the 
method I mentioned... (in rather too much detail it seems!).  The 
current result is that Japanese is working in the machine with the new 
(Japanese) install, but still not working in the English install 
version.  When I find time, I'll go back over the different advice 
people have offered and type in whatever to get it fired up.

>Then later i can work on doing same with English menus.  Seems that SHOULD
>be out of the box, but who knows.
>

When I last did an install with Red Hat, it clearly and logically allows 
you to pick a main language, and then to pick languages supported.  I 
liked that much better than the way it seems to be in SuSe - where they 
sort of force you to install in one language only and then you have to 
go back to add things (there must be a way to do that in the initial 
install, but I couldn't find it).  In my case though, the Japanese 
worked well right off after the Japanese version install.

>One thing, I have the disks which I bought from Australia.  It is unclear
>if the disks that are sold in Japan, such as at Plathhom shops, are
>localized for Japanese just from an esthetic point of view or actual do
>result in a functioning Japanese system right out of the box.  These are
>all things to investigate.
>
>
I don't think they've done any localizing at all!  As far as i could 
tell, that one shop in Akihabara is the only shop in all of Tokyo 
selling it, and the box is entirely in English with English instructions 
(one reason I bought it actually!).  Probably you have the very same 
thing I bought here in Tokyo, although I suppose you paid less?  How 
much did it cost in Australia.  I think it was Y10,000 here.

>As said, I think you (and I and anybody) need to go through things
>systematically.   Right now it is a matter of try this and try that, but I
>always wonder if I am messing things up when I try something that doesn't
>work......
>
>
In my experimenting with Linux over the years, I'm constantly struck by 
something that's a little hard to pin down, but at least the way it 
feels is this:  There are a whole team of people contributing to Linux 
worldwide, and they produce brilliant solutions to computing needs, but 
being of so many different pieces, things are less tied together than 
with MS.  I'm finding that this isn't a huge problem, but it does 
require a different mind-set.  You have to stop expecting system-wide 
behavior and instead look more closely at the different components.  It 
requires a little more attention to detail than some people have time 
for, but things seemed very complicated for me with MS stuff before too, 
so at least part of it is just getting used to a new system - or, more 
specifically - new systems!  Like the workaround I just discovered for 
using copy-paste between applications when writing with EditPad Pro - it 
seems a little odd, but now that I know how to do it, it's not  a problem.

>If red hat works (seems to be fedora now) , as someone said, right out of
>the box in Japanese, I might try that.
>

In my previous installations of Red Hat, I installed Japanese language 
support, but was unable to write anything in Japanese, so I think it may 
be a similar situation to where you already are.  When I get a chance, 
I'll pick up a magazine with Fedora and try tossing it into a test 
computer to see how it turns out.

>Still, am tempted to try a "made-in-Japan" installer of Suse, or Red Hat, or
>something else known to work and not require tweaking, though as someone
>said, Susue is generally very nice and I love the YAST option, which makes
>installtion of most things easy.
>
>
Again - I don't think there is such a thing as a "Made in Japan" version 
of SuSe.  That company is just importing the same thing you bought in 
Australia I think.  Actually, SuSe probably ought to print a Japanese 
language instruction manual and box to put the product in - then maybe 
there would be more than that one shop in this vast city to buy it at!  
As for installing things, so far that is working very well!