Edit page EthiopianLocale

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+== sysconfig ==
+
+To enable the Amharic Ethiopian locale, the /etc/sysconfig/i18n
+file needs to contain:
+
+{{{
+LANG=am_ET.UTF-8
+}}}
+
+To alleviate boot overhead with UTF-8 locales, we'd like to
+move this setting to a later point in the boot process.
+olpc-dm would be a good candidate.
+
+AI: I'm going to make some tests and report back.
+
+
+== glibc ==
+
+F7 glibc does not even boot when am_ET is enabled, but it's not
+obvious why.  Suffice to say that the output of ls comes out
+sorted by strlen() when am_ET is enabled!!!
+
+glibc-2.6 from F8 is ok, but I can't find an obvious patch to
+backport.  The only recent addition to the am_ET locale has
+been to discard accents in string comparisons.
+
+Moreover, the glibc-2.6 rpm post-install scriptlet fails silently
+on jffs2, corrupting the locale archive.   It happens because
+the build-locale-archive tool tries to use a shared writable
+file map which is not supported.
+
+The glibc-2.6 rpm is available from bernie-olpc.
+
+ * AI: Of course we don't want to upgrade to 2.6 at this time, so I'm asking the glibc hackers for insight.
+
+== Fonts ==
+
+A good candidate that provides high-quality Ethiopian glyphs is the
+Abyssinica-SIL.ttf, which is not packaged in Fedora.
+
+I grabbed the TTF file from the Debian package ttf-sil-abyssinica-1.0
+and temporarily installed it in /home/olpc/.fonts/
+
+I'm not sure the font license is acceptable for Fedora or even us.
+Someone with better understanding should check.
+
+ * AI: I could easily create an RPM once we decide this is the font we want to use.
+
+
+== ET keyboard layout ==
+
+The updated xkeyboard-config RPM shipped with latest builds
+already contains the "et" keyboard layout.
+
+This can set in xorg.conf, or loaded for testing like so:
+
+{{{
+setxkbmap -v -model olpc et
+}}}
+
+The "=" key is not working in current builds, but Sergey
+has already fixed it upstream and we'll pick it up with
+the next update.
+
+ * AI: I'll send a new olpc patch upstream to resync
+
+ * AI: I'll update our RPM from a CVS snapshot of xkeyboard-config
+
+
+== libX11 ==
+
+Sergey's Compose file for am_ET is already upstream, and it
+is required for XIM-baded composition to work in all applications.
+
+I prepared an updated RPM and staged in OlpcBernie.
+
+Even with this new RPM installed, XIM does not appear to work in
+Abiword and other utilities I tried.
+
+Furthermore, the Compose works by pressing a vowel, followed
+by a consonant, which seems to be a less convenient way
+of producing glyphs (see below)
+
+ * AI: Sergey said he'll check if CONSONANT+VOWEL is possible with XIM.
+
+
+== GTK IM ==
+
+GTK contains an Amharic input method which is currently outdated.
+I'm in contact with the author, Daniel Yacob, who'll soon port
+his latest patch to the current version of GTK.
+This probably means we'll have to fork the gtk2 package too.
+I'm unable to tell how important these changes would be for users.
+
+Lidet Tilahun, a professor of Ethiopian at Harvard, tried typing
+on the XO with this IM and confirmed that this would be the
+preferred method.  It's basically CONSONANT+VOWEL, with a way
+to switch in a CONSONANT-only mode.
+
+Additionally, it seems this IM requires the "us" keyboard.
+I couldn't get it to work with the "et" keyboard loaded.
+Daniel says it shouldn't happen.
+
+ * AI: waiting for a patch.  Progress is being tracked here:
+   http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=101360
+
+== Write.activity ==
+
+We couldn't get glyph composing to give correct visual
+feedback on the XO.
+
+On F7, Abiword works fine, but it's an old version that still
+used Xft directly.  The version we use now switched to pango
+and apparently regressed on this.
+
+I asked uwog about it and he suggested me to file a bug
+upstream.  Without this fix, the IM is still usable, but
+very unfriendly.
+
+ * AI: I will file the bug upstream.
+
+
+== Other Gtk applications ==
+
+I tried installing gedit on an XO, and I couldn't get
+neither the Amharic, nor the XIM input methods to work
+with it.
+
+Works fine on F7.
+
+ * AI: Needs investigation.
+
+
+== Misc issues ==
+
+System stability appears to be somewhat compromised when all
+the above changes are enabled.
+
+I've seen activities crashing randomly and funny rendering
+problems.
+
+ * AI: Before we even start filing bugs on this, I'd prefer to
+   see some of the above components land in the builds, otherwise
+   we might be chasing bugs that are even harder to reproduce.