Mera Wala Linux

With IndiX, a project that enables Hindi support in Linux, the GNOME desktop and the Linux console can be set up to display messages in Hindi. In GNOME, standard labels like OK, Cancel, Warning, New, Open and Save in the pop-ups, dialog boxes and menu items can be shown in Hindi, while in the Linux console, the output of the commands is in Hindi. IndiX packages includes modified binaries of X Window system, GNOME/GTK widget toolkit and an Indix terminal emulator program. 

Installation

We now get into installing the package on a machine running PCQLinux 7.1. Installation is fairly straightforward. Log in as
root, create a directory named indix under /opt directory and copy all the files from the directory
ystem/cdrom/unltdoss/linux/indix on this month’s PCQuest CD to /opt directory. Change (cd) to /opt/indix directory and
issue

./install-indix

Press n when prompted to change the default backup directory. The installation will create a backup of the files it is going to replace and then install IndiX. The backed up files are used to uninstall IndiX (see box). 

Configuration

Next, you need to make some changes in the configuration file of X Window, which is named XF86Config-4. This file is in the directory /etc/X11. Before making the changes, we recommend that you backup the file. 

Open the file XF86Config-4 in a Linux text editor. This configuration file is divided into sections. Scroll to the section named Files and comment out (disable) the line

FontPath “unix/:7100”

by adding a # in front of it. Next, add the following lines below the commented line.

FontPath “/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc”

FontPath “/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi”

FontPath “/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi”

FontPath “/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType”

FontPath “/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1”

Scroll to the section named Module and add the following lines before “EndSection”. 

Load “freetype”

Load “type1”

Save the file. Next, set an environment variable named LANG. On the Linux console or command line issue the following

export LANG=hi_IN.UTF-8

Append this line in the file named .bashrc (note the dot prefix) found in your home directory. Doing this will automatically set the variable on subsequent reboots. 

Hindi in X Window

If you are using KDE as the default X desktop, open/create a file named .xinitrc in your home directory (/root, if you are logged in as root) and type the following

gnome-session 

Save the file and then issue startx command to launch X Window. If you are already in X Window, press CTRL+ATL+ Backspace. As shown in the screenshot, you will see the labels of the GNOME widgets (GUI components) are displayed in Hindi. 

Hindi in the Console

ncst-term is a terminal emulator program (also known as Linux shell, command line or console) that supports IndiX. Open a terminal window within GNOME and issue the following command.

export LANG=hi_IN.UTF-8

Then issue

ncst-term

This will open a new terminal window. You can key in any Linux command in this window. As in X (see above), some standard parts in the output of the commands will be shown in Hindi. 

For more on IndiX, go to http://rohini.ncst.ernet.in/indix/. Also the Devanagari-HOWTO at
http://rohini.ncst.ernet.in/indix/doc/HOWTO/Devanagari-HOWTO-index.html is a must read.  

Shekhar Govindarajan