[SOLVED] Setting up Bengali desktop....HELP!!

s26c.sayan · 2007-03-14 13:24:04

I'm using Arch with fluxbox as WM and I want to have my desktop in Bengali. This means, I'd like to see my menu-entries in bengali and also like to type in with bengali fonts (besides english). This is what I'v done so far, with help from various online resources :

1) Set up my 'locale' to include bengali (bn_IN.utf8) following the wiki guide :http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Locale

2) Installed bengali fonts using pacman.

3) Tried to set up keyboard layout by editing xorg.conf. Here's the relevant portion of the file :

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier  "Keyboard1"
Driver      "kbd"
...................................
    Option "XkbRules"   "xorg"
    Option "XkbModel"   "pc105"
    Option "XkbLayout"  "us+in"
    Option "XkbVariant" "probhat"
EndSection

Also, I installed the package xxkb for switching between layouts.

Unfortuantely, I am stuck now!!!
I dont have any idea where to go next. I don't get any begali letters on my desktop...but sometimes I do get just some rectangles instead!!

I am confused entirely and frustrated too. This is so much in contrast with my previous distro Ubuntu where it was easy to have a bengali desktop. Not that I mind doing it the hard way (I'm here to learn!!)...so please, can anyone help me??

Last edited by s26c.sayan (2007-03-16 10:48:44)

Stalwart · 2007-03-14 22:06:23

Installing gonts is not just fetching them with pacman. You need to add their path to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

P.S. Ubuntu has different goals, don't compare it to Arch

s26c.sayan · 2007-03-15 07:06:37

Ubuntu has different goals, don't compare it to Arch

I know, and I was NOT comparing the two really....I was in effect just acknowledgin the same differences you are talking about!!

nstalling gonts is not just fetching them with pacman. You need to add their path to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

When I installed the fonts using pacman, they have been automatically placed in my /usr/share/fonts directory, which is mentioned in my xorg.conf.

Guess not much help is available for my issue!!!

Sigi · 2007-03-15 08:40:52

What Stalwart meant is that you'll have to add the specific path of a font "/usr/share/fonts/YOURNEWFONT" to the other font directories in your xorg.conf.

Stalwart · 2007-03-15 13:18:13

I installed ttf-freebanglafont 0.5-5, ran fc-cache -fv, restarted X server and now i see strange characters in Opera. Are these bengali?

Squares in dwm statusbar on top are because dwm uses Terminus font which doesn't contain bengali characters. GUI apps like web browsers fall back to bengali font if they can't find specific characters in usual font

Last edited by Stalwart (2007-03-15 13:23:21)

s26c.sayan · 2007-03-15 14:18:42

Yup dude!! They are bengali letters all right (though there seems to be some problems with unicode settings, which is usual!!). Thanks for the trouble of installing them on your box in an effort to help me!! Really nice jesture!!

In the meanwhile, I have managed to proceed a bit further!! It seems the site from where I got the instructions for editing xorg.conf were using xfree86 instead of xorg. So, I had to do a bit improvising (hope I have done correctly).

Right now, I am able to view the GTK -or-whatever apps (e.g Gaim) in bengali . The box-es which I were seeing were in fluxbox menus and window titles. I have sorted that out too, by changing the font used by the current fluxbox theme(style) to an unicode one!!

However, I still can't type in bengali!!
I just can't fathom out how to enable a particular keyboard layout (I want something like this one : http://www.bengalinux.org/downloads/ben). I think it is called 'probhat'.
At times, I can type a few arbitrary letters in bengali, but the layout seems to be totally unfamiliar!!!

Any help on this will be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks!!

P.S. : Can I install Gnome and use its more familiar GUI based keyboard layout changer options to do the thing, and later uninstall gnome and continue with fluxbox? Is that a good idea? But even if it is, I'd still like to learn how to do things the CLI way!!

Stalwart · 2007-03-15 21:14:08

Can't help you then. Russian localisation is much simpler task Try asking in IRC on some bengali localisation channels

GNOME has its own keyboard management tools and what you configured in it won't work in fluxbox.

s26c.sayan · 2007-03-16 10:47:01

Good News!!!!!!!!!

I have managed to do it finally...at least it seems so!!

First, I installed gnome using pacman, and then fired up 'gnome-keyboard properties' from within fluxbox. Then, everything worked perfectly!! However, on uninstalling gnome, I was once again put back to typing box-es!!

Then , I saw some guides on how to configure xkb rules properly!! Finally, I could get things right. The correct snippet of my xorg.conf file (after hand-editing) is as follows :

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier  "Keyboard1"
Driver      "kbd"
...................................
    Option "XkbRules"   "xorg"
    Option "XkbModel"   "pc105"
    Option "XkbLayout"  "us,in"
    Option "XkbVariant" ",ben_probhat"
EndSection

The main problem was in the XkbVariant line, where I had missed out the 'comma' before specifying ben_probhat!!

The only thing I need to go on from here is to somehow enable Unicode properly for Fluxbox, so that the bengali letters in the context-menu ,toolbar, and window title bar are not jumbled up like it is now!! But that'd be a specific Fluxbox issue!!

Last edited by s26c.sayan (2007-03-16 11:26:54)

Arch Linux

#1 2007-03-14 13:24:04

[SOLVED] Setting up Bengali desktop....HELP!!

#2 2007-03-14 22:06:23

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up Bengali desktop....HELP!!

#3 2007-03-15 07:06:37

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up Bengali desktop....HELP!!

#4 2007-03-15 08:40:52

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up Bengali desktop....HELP!!

#5 2007-03-15 13:18:13

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up Bengali desktop....HELP!!

#6 2007-03-15 14:18:42

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up Bengali desktop....HELP!!

#7 2007-03-15 21:14:08

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up Bengali desktop....HELP!!

#8 2007-03-16 10:47:01

Re: [SOLVED] Setting up Bengali desktop....HELP!!

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