From tefera በ mekuria.com Fri Jun 2 07:29:44 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Fri Jun 2 14:20:43 2006 Subject: [am-translate] One laptop per chlied (OLPC Ethiopia), Launchpad issue Message-ID: Selam all I have a feeling I am being a pain on the ... But there is nothing I can do. I can't just give up while there is a lot at stake. I would like you all to see the fallowing URL please comment on them. http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/OLPC_Ethiopia Daniel did you look at resotta yet? We really need to do things much more smoothly than we are doing now. I was trying to interest people with this tools. But unless the job that we do move forward and see the results the interest disappears quickly. And that is quite frustrating. I have requested the Ubuntu folk to create an Ubuntu Amharic translation team page and they have activated it. the address is https://launchpad.net/people/ubuntu-l10n-am . The new Ubuntu distribution Dapper Drake was realised yesterday. I was playing with it all my free time yesterday. And it is wow. I believe we can build a localized live CD for Amharic with Ubuntu. I will try to do that to carry it with me and show off to people. What I am thinking is to translate and make new builds every one week and burn them on a rewritable CD and take them with where ever I go. Stick it to peoples computers and surprise them. The best thing about Rosetta and Ubuntu is every thing necessary for us to build a complete and functioning localised destro is there. I have even created a logo for Amharic Ubuntu (I defnetely have no talent, but i compensate that with enthusiasm). And with all my heart I believe we can create a complete system in one year if we remove all obstacles for people to work on. The only translatable files that are missing from Rosetta are the mozilla family applications. I hope they will include them soon. But even that is not a problem since there are other similar tools we can use though not on windows. Again I hope you will all give a try on Rosetta and discuss on how to better organize the localization team, Because we need not only lowly translators but linguists, testers, coders, checking and verify translations...etc. I have been discussing with few people some suggest that we can get funding from various sources to hirer people for some of the more specialised activities. All dreams come true if we persist. cheers tegegne -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.geez.org/pipermail/am-translate/attachments/20060602/b32073e5/attachment.html From locales በ geez.org Sat Jun 3 12:01:47 2006 From: locales በ geez.org (Daniel Yacob) Date: Sat Jun 3 12:01:54 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The glossary at Addis Ababa University Message-ID: Tegegne, Sorry for the slow response, I had to travel recently and preparing for that consumed all my spare moments. I just looked at the glossary, amazingly it is not in Unicode though the web pages are. I have a converter for the font they used, but it is imperfect, I will try it anyway, it will likely leave some clean up work required. It all depends on how well the version of Excel that I have can export the text without encoding corruption. I still didn't get to install Ubuntu, I had gotten as far as burning an Ubuntu 5.10 CD before losing time. I've burned the 6.06 CD and will install it tonight -before they update again! /Daniel From locales በ geez.org Sat Jun 3 12:11:42 2006 From: locales በ geez.org (Daniel Yacob) Date: Sat Jun 3 12:11:48 2006 Subject: [am-translate] One laptop per chlied (OLPC Ethiopia), Launchpad issue Message-ID: Tegegne, I am glad to see you take the lead here and setup the Amharic Ubuntu site. I think it will be a good goal if we try to have a complete Amharic Ubuntu release by the year 2000. I will learn my way around Ubuntu this week, also Rosetta, then I can better discuss how I can help out the effort. The keyboard side I think is something I can definitely work on. more soon, /Daniel From tefera በ mekuria.com Sat Jun 3 14:31:34 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Sat Jun 3 14:23:07 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The glossary at Addis Ababa University In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This ubuntu is going to be the LTS (Long time support) version. Desktop 3 years and servers 6 years. This is the the first time i run a Linux without frustration though because of the wireless i use xp on my laptop. The desk top is running ubuntu for 2.5 days without a glitch. In your world that might not be a big deal. In mine it is. More over to do a translation and see the result at once is quite thrilling. I am an exited user of computers. I am not the professional. I have an idea of their potential. the difficulties bringing them to the Ethiopian man, women and children. A localised free software that can run on a cheapest hardware possible would bring the digital revolution closer to Ethiopians. The way things are in Ethiopia today volunteer work is if not the only solution, is going to be the primary solution. Until now there was a problem of a user friendly system that is easy enough for any one with a computer and an Internet connection to participate. Now that tool is here. Lets be the bridge tegegne On 6/3/06, Daniel Yacob wrote: > > Tegegne, > > Sorry for the slow response, I had to travel recently and preparing for > that > consumed all my spare moments. I just looked at the glossary, amazingly > it is > not in Unicode though the web pages are. I have a converter for the font > they used, but it is imperfect, I will try it anyway, it will likely leave > some clean up work required. It all depends on how well the version of > Excel > that I have can export the text without encoding corruption. > > I still didn't get to install Ubuntu, I had gotten as far as burning an > Ubuntu 5.10 CD before losing time. I've burned the 6.06 CD and will > install > it tonight -before they update again! > > /Daniel > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.geez.org/pipermail/am-translate/attachments/20060603/ec80743f/attachment.html From tefera በ mekuria.com Sat Jun 3 19:25:21 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Sat Jun 3 19:23:14 2006 Subject: [am-translate] One laptop per chlied (OLPC Ethiopia), Launchpad issue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The first wish I have is prepare a weekly, if not, two weekly localized Amharic ubuntu live CD build. I tried to build it my self and i failed. I am sure if i spend enough time i could build it. But if each one of us instead spend our time translating and one or two prepare the build every two week we can enjoy our work and save a lot of time too. I am prepared to burn about 100 live-CDs and destribute them here in norway where i live, among Ethiopians to let them have the feel. I sujust we open a project site at sourceforge.net to put the files there so people cuould download, burn, enjoy and be inspired by them. The how to build the localized live cd is at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveCDCustomizationHowToDapper cheers tegegne On 6/3/06, Daniel Yacob wrote: > > Tegegne, > > I am glad to see you take the lead here and setup the Amharic Ubuntu > site. I > think it will be a good goal if we try to have a complete Amharic Ubuntu > release > by the year 2000. > > I will learn my way around Ubuntu this week, also Rosetta, then I can > better > discuss how I can help out the effort. The keyboard side I think is > something > I can definitely work on. > > more soon, > > /Daniel > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.geez.org/pipermail/am-translate/attachments/20060603/34403e42/attachment.html From fan-te በ online.no Sun Jun 4 01:13:17 2006 From: fan-te በ online.no (Fantaw) Date: Sun Jun 4 01:04:57 2006 Subject: [am-translate] One laptop per chlied (OLPC Ethiopia), Launchpad issue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448279FD.80602@online.no> Selam All! Ubuntu is a good choice to start with. Let us keep in mind that we have a goal and work to make available Ubuntu OS in Amharic in year 2000. It is possible. The first Linux OS I tried was Ubuntu without having a clue that much. Don't have it now, but I will install it again in the coming weeks. Fantaw ----------------------------------------- TG wrote: > The first wish I have is prepare a weekly, if not, two weekly > localized Amharic ubuntu live CD build. I tried to build it my self > and i failed. I am sure if i spend enough time i could build it. But > if each one of us instead spend our time translating and one or two > prepare the build every two week we can enjoy our work and save a lot > of time too. I am prepared to burn about 100 live-CDs and destribute > them here in norway where i live, among Ethiopians to let them have > the feel. I sujust we open a project site at sourceforge.net > to put the files there so people cuould > download, burn, enjoy and be inspired by them. > > The how to build the localized live cd is at > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveCDCustomizationHowToDapper > > cheers > tegegne > > On 6/3/06, *Daniel Yacob* > > wrote: > > Tegegne, > > I am glad to see you take the lead here and setup the Amharic > Ubuntu site. I > think it will be a good goal if we try to have a complete Amharic > Ubuntu release > by the year 2000. > > I will learn my way around Ubuntu this week, also Rosetta, then I > can better > discuss how I can help out the effort. The keyboard side I think > is something > I can definitely work on. > > more soon, > > /Daniel > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > am-translate mailing list > am-translate@geez.org > http://geez.org/mailman/listinfo/am-translate > From tefera በ mekuria.com Sun Jun 4 04:23:39 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Sun Jun 4 04:16:13 2006 Subject: [am-translate] Root account in Ubuntu Message-ID: Hi all previously I mentioned that it is not possible to have a root account in ubuntu. I was wrong. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RootSudo tg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.geez.org/pipermail/am-translate/attachments/20060604/de6d9d28/attachment.html From tefera በ mekuria.com Mon Jun 5 03:38:20 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Mon Jun 5 03:54:54 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The Ethiopian millennium Gift project Message-ID: The Ethiopian millennium Gift project You do not have to be a programmer to make a difference. What you can, we need that. We need project coordinators, lawyers ,translators, testers, bug reporters, documentation writers, tutorial writers, artists, advocates, babysitters... . We need your experience and guidance. We need and highly value your input. And if you are also a programmer, well that's good, but it isn't essential. Put your name and your love on the greatest gift of the millennium to the Ethiopian people. Organize working groups in your areas, and help. http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/OLPC_Ethiopia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.geez.org/pipermail/am-translate/attachments/20060605/eb75efb5/attachment.html From locales በ geez.org Tue Jun 6 07:27:12 2006 From: locales በ geez.org (Daniel Yacob) Date: Tue Jun 6 07:27:32 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The Ethiopian millennium Gift project Message-ID: Tegegne and Everyone, I do have Ubuntu 6.06 installed, it is an impressive desktop linux. Seems a little restrictive as a development platform, but that is probably just a matter of getting used to it. Overall very nice, I think it is a good choice for a first time user. Wireless networking worked right away without a 16 hour battle. That's nice! Recently I've been advising the CTIT on the definition of an OOo localization project. A proposal is still going through the approval process but it looks fairly certain that they will be able fund localization work amongst a team of developers there. After working on parts of OOo they may be able to go further. My role is just to help them get started during the first 5-10% of the effort and then disappear and advise as needed. Just this week I've had an email from Adama University students trying to update the AbiWord localization as well as OOo. I'm going to advise both groups to base their work on Ubuntu and for the Adama students to work on pieces of Ubuntu after AbiWord (skipping OOo, which is the most difficult of all software to localize and build). I'm preparing CDs for both groups this week. With the time I have available the best thing that I can do for the Ubuntu effort, given my experiences, is to focus on systems level problems such as fonts, keyboards, locales, and figuring out the Ubuntu L10N infrastructure. Also to provide some coordination help amongst these parties to help assure no duplication of effort. I'll look this week into Rosetta and propose some work priorities, Tegegne if you have some work priorities in mind already, please inform. thanks, /Daniel From tefera በ mekuria.com Tue Jun 6 17:16:11 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Tue Jun 6 17:07:40 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The Ethiopian millennium Gift project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Selam Daniel and all I think Resotta has made the job very easy. It already prioritizes jobs according to their significance. I have requested the developers to separate further the different Ubuntu flavours (Kbuntu/xfceubunt/Edubunt..) so that people could concentrate on one project. I think at this moment working on OOo is a west of time and resources. The only environment where any localised software is going to be used with certainty is in Linux. XP and latter windows do not support Amharic. Vesta if ever it comes out the possibility of Ethiopians getting it in mass is next to none. And more over in Gnome we have all the necessary applications we need and are not as complex and resource consuming to localize. Therefore concentrating our effort on Ubuntu is not only the easiest but the most productive one. It will be easier to coordinate translations, file bugs, to test. one can work with ubuntu live Amharic cd to translate ubuntu from any where. As i said releasing one Amharic ubuntu image every two week would encourage people to work harder. I am waiting Daniel until you finish looking at Rosetta and other feature's Organizing people in to translating groups, editors, quality controllers.. etc needs to be done. How? to tell you the truth I do not have any concrete idea. i am getting a lot of feedback from different corners. But i recognize many of the things are beyond i can manage. Therefor I would like people to take initiative and develop ideas on how to proceed on certain task. I will report the developments at this end. tegegne On 6/6/06, Daniel Yacob wrote: > > Tegegne and Everyone, > > I do have Ubuntu 6.06 installed, it is an impressive desktop linux. Seems > a > little restrictive as a development platform, but that is probably just a > matter of getting used to it. Overall very nice, I think it is a good > choice > for a first time user. Wireless networking worked right away without a 16 > hour battle. That's nice! > > Recently I've been advising the CTIT on the definition of an OOo > localization > project. A proposal is still going through the approval process but it > looks > fairly certain that they will be able fund localization work amongst a > team > of developers there. After working on parts of OOo they may be able to go > further. My role is just to help them get started during the first 5-10% > of > the effort and then disappear and advise as needed. > > Just this week I've had an email from Adama University students trying to > update the AbiWord localization as well as OOo. I'm going to advise both > groups to base their work on Ubuntu and for the Adama students to work on > pieces of Ubuntu after AbiWord (skipping OOo, which is the most difficult > of all software to localize and build). I'm preparing CDs for both groups > this week. > > With the time I have available the best thing that I can do for the Ubuntu > effort, given my experiences, is to focus on systems level problems such > as > fonts, keyboards, locales, and figuring out the Ubuntu L10N > infrastructure. > Also to provide some coordination help amongst these parties to help > assure > no duplication of effort. I'll look this week into Rosetta and propose > some > work priorities, Tegegne if you have some work priorities in mind already, > please inform. > > thanks, > > /Daniel > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.geez.org/pipermail/am-translate/attachments/20060606/9af48da2/attachment-0001.html From tefera በ mekuria.com Mon Jun 12 17:44:10 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Mon Jun 12 17:35:27 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The best font In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I am wondering. What is the best font to display Amharic as well as English letters in Amharic environment. in Gnome/ubuntu. Please let us know if you find any thing nice. I am using at the moment the Ethiopic yebse by washera. The Amharic part is OK but the English letters are horrible. I am trying to work the translation on ubuntu on Amharic environment and the fonts make your eyes get tyred faster than the work. cheers tegegne From locales በ geez.org Mon Jun 12 19:58:38 2006 From: locales በ geez.org (Daniel Yacob) Date: Mon Jun 12 19:58:56 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The best font Message-ID: Tegegne, Try the very newly released Abyssinica: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=AbyssinicaSIL The english typeface is very similar to Times Roman and has pretty strong quality. The default font that Ubuntu uses for Ethiopic is the FreeMono font (or FreeSerif) which is based on the Metafont from the Ethiop Babel package. I've been frustrated that the new gnome-terminal has removed the -font option to let you specify a font. I think the GNOME policy now is to make you configure fonts through their preferences widget. I've got to figure out fast how to get the fixed fonts working that I'm used to. Proportional fonts in terminals just don't work. I'll try to focus on fonts for this week, to figure out the system Ubuntu is using. One thing we should target is to make an extra package of ethiopic fonts. This optional package would include configuration for the fixed fonts, plus a collection of the free TrueType ethiopic fonts -but with the non-ethiopic letters stripped out. When the Latin letters are not present in the font, the font service is smart enough to use the default Latin font, this is what the hindic fonts do. I tried hacking the font cache metadata to trick the server into thinking the ethiopic TT fonts had no latin, but it didn't work at all, its too smart. /Daniel From locales በ geez.org Mon Jun 12 20:44:23 2006 From: locales በ geez.org (Daniel Yacob) Date: Mon Jun 12 20:44:25 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The Ethiopian millennium Gift project Message-ID: Concerning Rosetta, it looks like a great system, its very nice now. The only thing that I would worry about is that vocabulary gets trapped in the system, but they have PO export and import features which avoids any issue here. What I see is that the packages appear to be prioritized down to "dpkg" and after that the package list simply becomes alphabetic. Before that point, the prioritized package list does contain a mix of gnome, kde and xfce. I still favor focusing on translation of GNOME resources first -one reason is that it is the Ubuntu default and previous translations had also focused on gnome. If people agree, this means that under the prioritized set the following packages can be skipped in the effort to get the default ubuntu system localized: kdelibs kdesktop kicker ksmserver libkickmenu-prefmenu libkickmenu-remotefmenu libkickmenu-systemfmenu libkong xfce-mcs-manager xfce4-panel xfce-session khelpcenter konqueror libkickermenu-kdeprint libkickermenu-konsole libkickermenu-recentdocs libkickermenu-torn xfce-mcs-plugins about-kubuntu I'm still a little confused by the prioritization. For example, gedit is way down on the list, though it is a default application under the Applications > Accessories menu (labeled there as "Text Editor"). Also, Tegegne, you mentioned that the mozilla files had to be translated to received official ubuntu support? Where did you get this info? What is its priority with respect to the other items? Its not in the list! The list that I am looking at is: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/dapper/+lang/am thanks, /Daniel From tefera በ mekuria.com Tue Jun 13 03:27:40 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Tue Jun 13 03:19:05 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The Ethiopian millennium Gift project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Finishing the Gnome environment was what I was thinking about also. To that effect i asked the maintainers to categorize the files in to their respective environment and put the files common to all in to one category. They said they are working on it. I believe within the categorized list they would again prioritise it. But of course we can also prioritise as we wish according to our need. I am not sure if i said Mozilla files have to be translated to be included. But i might have said Mozilla xpi files has to be converted to po files to be included in to Rosetta. I have no idea why they have not done that. I believe they are using the translate tools at http://translate.sourceforge.net/ to convert the OOo files to po and they can use the same tool to convert Mozilla applications. Any way if we decide to finish with gnome that also is not our biggest concern: ጥምቀት is more than fine. Office tools are covered with Gnomeoffice http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/. The only thing that i could not find is Gnome-db in ubuntu the repositories. And that i believe would solve it self in due time. Thanks for the tip on the fonts Daniel I will try them now. But i have few requests to coding department. 1. To choose one keyboard input method and provide short cut key to choose between two languages. 2. Is it possible to write a sort of script to build a localised ubuntu with the finished translations in a given interval? Also add a sort of bug reporting system for unclear translations, or make suggestions? Can we put the files at sourceforge.net and use the https://launchpad.net/products/bzr to track the ተውሳክ. The benefit is a lot. People can download the iso file burn them and play with it (it is also a live cd). It helps every one interested to get used to the Amharic environment without installing, unclear translations can be sorted out....and so on. 3. To give this releases a version number (alpha, beta...) to wards releasing a full-fledged Amharic ubuntu and Amharic edubuntu. And set a timetable for amharicUbuntu 1.0 release I say one month before Ethiopian year 2000. 3. I do not know if the language packages are being updated for Amharic. But if it is, we do not need to download the whole iso file every time new releases come out. Ubuntu update would take care of that. But since Amharic is not yet supported officially i am not sure if our translations are being updated? I am thinking of requesting the Ethiopians Students association international (esai) http://www.esai.org/myESAi/module-driver.php?module=66 and Dr. Taye Wolde Samyat the Ethiopian teachers association to give support to the projects. Dr. Taye is in Norway at the moment. What do you think? I am not sure yet if i can manage to wake his curiosity and interest to make him endorse the project. If he does that it would be a blast. Think about edubuntu in our own language in every schools cheap servers, and cheap desktops in every class room, connected to the sever in mesh wireless network. Wow!!!! Tell me I am daydreaming, and that is not possible. tegegne On 6/13/06, Daniel Yacob wrote: > Concerning Rosetta, it looks like a great system, its very nice now. > The only thing that I would worry about is that vocabulary gets > trapped in the system, but they have PO export and import features > which avoids any issue here. > > What I see is that the packages appear to be prioritized down to > "dpkg" and after that the package list simply becomes alphabetic. > Before that point, the prioritized package list does contain a mix > of gnome, kde and xfce. I still favor focusing on translation of > GNOME resources first -one reason is that it is the Ubuntu default > and previous translations had also focused on gnome. If people > agree, this means that under the prioritized set the following > packages can be skipped in the effort to get the default ubuntu > system localized: > > kdelibs > kdesktop > kicker > ksmserver > libkickmenu-prefmenu > libkickmenu-remotefmenu > libkickmenu-systemfmenu > libkong > xfce-mcs-manager > xfce4-panel > xfce-session > khelpcenter > konqueror > libkickermenu-kdeprint > libkickermenu-konsole > libkickermenu-recentdocs > libkickermenu-torn > xfce-mcs-plugins > about-kubuntu > > I'm still a little confused by the prioritization. For example, > gedit is way down on the list, though it is a default application > under the Applications > Accessories menu (labeled there as > "Text Editor"). Also, Tegegne, you mentioned that the mozilla > files had to be translated to received official ubuntu support? > Where did you get this info? What is its priority with respect > to the other items? Its not in the list! The list that I am > looking at is: > > https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/dapper/+lang/am > > thanks, > > /Daniel > > From fan-te በ online.no Wed Jun 14 05:55:19 2006 From: fan-te በ online.no (Fantaw) Date: Wed Jun 14 05:47:14 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The Ethiopian millennium Gift project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448FEB17.2020808@online.no> Tadiyas everybody! I think it will be nice if we know which part of the subject is a priority to translate for our goal. Of course, we are going to translate all the necessary bits. But some of the bits are more important than others like Daniel have mentioned. I have started to translate two xfce4 bits, then stopping that because knowing they were not as important. People telling me "you do not understand things" (ante neger aygebahm) :-\ I also think that we need a good discussion board for our specific information, questions and answers. Sure, there is a discussion board at Ubuntu. If we have a discussion board for our needs, then it is a better place to put all our thoughts at one place in sorted topics. So, our thoughts will be available there at one place when ever we need it. This is better than emails and useful both to new comers and existed translators. We may use phpBB by installing at geez.org. The early the better. If ok, who can do this? Fantaw --------------------------------------- TG wrote: > Finishing the Gnome environment was what I was thinking about also. To > that effect i asked the maintainers to categorize the files in to > their respective environment and put the files common to all in to one > category. They said they are working on it. I believe within the > categorized list they would again prioritise it. But of course we can > also prioritise as we wish according to our need. > > I am not sure if i said Mozilla files have to be translated to be > included. But i might have said Mozilla xpi files has to be converted > to po files to be included in to Rosetta. I have no idea why they have > not done that. I believe they are using the translate tools at > http://translate.sourceforge.net/ to convert the OOo files to po and > they can use the same tool to convert Mozilla applications. Any way if > we decide to finish with gnome that also is not our biggest concern: > ጥምቀት is more than fine. Office tools are covered with Gnomeoffice > http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/. The only thing that i could not > find is Gnome-db in ubuntu the repositories. And that i believe would > solve it self in due time. > > Thanks for the tip on the fonts Daniel I will try them now. But i have > few requests to coding department. > 1. To choose one keyboard input method and provide short cut key to > choose between two languages. > > 2. Is it possible to write a sort of script to build a localised > ubuntu with the finished translations in a given interval? Also add a > sort of bug reporting system for unclear translations, or make > suggestions? Can we put the files at sourceforge.net and use the > https://launchpad.net/products/bzr to track the ተውሳክ. The benefit is a > lot. People can download the iso file burn them and play with it (it > is also a live cd). It helps every one interested to get used to the > Amharic environment without installing, unclear translations can be > sorted out....and so on. > 3. To give this releases a version number (alpha, beta...) to wards > releasing a full-fledged Amharic ubuntu and Amharic edubuntu. And set > a timetable for amharicUbuntu 1.0 release I say one month before > Ethiopian year 2000. > > 3. I do not know if the language packages are being updated for > Amharic. But if it is, we do not need to download the whole iso file > every time new releases come out. Ubuntu update would take care of > that. But since Amharic is not yet supported officially i am not sure > if our translations are being updated? > > I am thinking of requesting the Ethiopians Students association > international (esai) > http://www.esai.org/myESAi/module-driver.php?module=66 and Dr. Taye > Wolde Samyat the Ethiopian teachers association to give support to the > projects. Dr. Taye is in Norway at the moment. What do you think? I am > not sure yet if i can manage to wake his curiosity and interest to > make him endorse the project. If he does that it would be a blast. > > Think about edubuntu in our own language in every schools cheap > servers, and cheap desktops in every class room, connected to the > sever in mesh wireless network. Wow!!!! Tell me I am daydreaming, and > that is not possible. > > tegegne > > > > On 6/13/06, Daniel Yacob wrote: >> Concerning Rosetta, it looks like a great system, its very nice now. >> The only thing that I would worry about is that vocabulary gets >> trapped in the system, but they have PO export and import features >> which avoids any issue here. >> >> What I see is that the packages appear to be prioritized down to >> "dpkg" and after that the package list simply becomes alphabetic. >> Before that point, the prioritized package list does contain a mix >> of gnome, kde and xfce. I still favor focusing on translation of >> GNOME resources first -one reason is that it is the Ubuntu default >> and previous translations had also focused on gnome. If people >> agree, this means that under the prioritized set the following >> packages can be skipped in the effort to get the default ubuntu >> system localized: >> >> kdelibs >> kdesktop >> kicker >> ksmserver >> libkickmenu-prefmenu >> libkickmenu-remotefmenu >> libkickmenu-systemfmenu >> libkong >> xfce-mcs-manager >> xfce4-panel >> xfce-session >> khelpcenter >> konqueror >> libkickermenu-kdeprint >> libkickermenu-konsole >> libkickermenu-recentdocs >> libkickermenu-torn >> xfce-mcs-plugins >> about-kubuntu >> >> I'm still a little confused by the prioritization. For example, >> gedit is way down on the list, though it is a default application >> under the Applications > Accessories menu (labeled there as >> "Text Editor"). Also, Tegegne, you mentioned that the mozilla >> files had to be translated to received official ubuntu support? >> Where did you get this info? What is its priority with respect >> to the other items? Its not in the list! The list that I am >> looking at is: >> >> https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/dapper/+lang/am >> >> thanks, >> >> /Daniel >> >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > am-translate mailing list > am-translate@geez.org > http://geez.org/mailman/listinfo/am-translate > From tefera በ mekuria.com Thu Jun 15 03:07:05 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Thu Jun 15 02:58:18 2006 Subject: [am-translate] Accelaration key issue Message-ID: Thanks Daniel for trying to keeping things in order. Have few question regarding accelaration keys. The practice now I belive is to keep the english accelaration key as it is. But hopefully we will have our own keyboard in the future. Then we will have problem. Also it looks ealy strange. I was wondering if we could start using amharic letters as an accelaration key? If we apply the above then is it the (ሳድስ) sixth letter we use? (if it is present in the phrase directly on it if it is not in a bracket and underscore?) since it is at least most keyboard layouts agree upon as the first order letters? Please advise if there is a technical problem. tegegne From tefera በ mekuria.com Sat Jun 17 18:12:40 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Sat Jun 17 18:03:49 2006 Subject: [am-translate] update on EMGP Message-ID: Selam all. The millennium Gift project is catching the attention of people. Usually people are very sceptic about this kind of thing. They are still sceptic. But when explained, their scepticism disappears quickly and they become surprised on realising how easy the concept is. My attempt to get the attention of Dr. Taye Woldesemayat is not fully successful, but he has been informed and I have opened hopefully a permanent channel with him. If the effort picks speed it will not be long before he realised this is something Ethiopian teachers should be part of. There was a suggestion at OLPC wiki page by one of the members of OLPC. I did understand the point. But I feel if some one with a good understanding of the subject takes under his wing. I can't suggest Daniel since he has more than enough on his plate. Please see the link below. http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=Talk:EMGP&action=edit§ion=3 From locales በ geez.org Sun Jun 18 07:10:34 2006 From: locales በ geez.org (Daniel Yacob) Date: Sun Jun 18 07:10:59 2006 Subject: [am-translate] Accelaration key issue Message-ID: Tefera, This is a good idea, but there is a technical problem that prevents non-Roman accelerator keys from working. There is also a technical solution however, in fact I posted a GTK patch to fix the problem in January of 2003: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=104112 Initially the GTK+ team didn't appreciate the problem but didn't reject it either, they've kept the bug report alive for 3 years and have even added to it. I've got a number of bug reports that are 3-4 years old, unfortunately in Open Source even though you can fix a problem, it doesn't meen the project owners will accept the fix. Another example is the Amharic input method, GTK+ didn't accept any updates after 2.0 because they've wanted to remove GTK+ IMs altogether, but have been slow to do so. A seperate project started (GTK-IM-Extras) to provide updates when the main team would not accept them. Unfortunately they have to be added after the OS installation, Ubuntu and other still come with the old, old original IMs. I think they will eventually fix this one though, since some other voice have backed it. Since the beginning the Japanese have accepted a convention where you see the Japanese word in a menu then next to it you see the short cut in parenthesis, like " (_F)" as it would appear in the po file. I started using this convention in my PO translations but don't like it. So at the time of my bug report it seemed like a new idea (probably just a forgotten old idea), and not critical since the Japanese and other languages had accepted an alternative. /Daniel From locales በ geez.org Sun Jun 18 07:13:47 2006 From: locales በ geez.org (Daniel Yacob) Date: Sun Jun 18 07:13:49 2006 Subject: [am-translate] update on EMGP Message-ID: I think Khassounah is correct, I've seen some complaining about timely synchronization between Rosetta and the root projects. I'd work through Rosetta during the week (if you edit in the web interface) then update with the root projects on the weekend. From locales በ geez.org Sun Jun 18 07:41:37 2006 From: locales በ geez.org (Daniel Yacob) Date: Sun Jun 18 07:41:40 2006 Subject: [am-translate] The Ethiopian millennium Gift project Message-ID: Tefera and Others, Quickly on language updates, I found that translations, including for Amharic, are updated each day into "language packages". These language package you can update on your system with a command like: deb http://people.ubuntu.com/~pitti/langpacks/daily/dapper-updates which will update all languages. I haven't tried it yet though. The thread is here: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-translators/2006-June/000686.html The command, in a script or by itself, can be cronned to run daily automatically. On keyboard short-cut keys, it will be IM system dependent, GTK+ vs SCIM will likely have different ways if possible at all (I remember discussing this with GTK people some years ago and they thought it wasn't necessary...). One news is that I was asked at the last minute to make a presentation at the World Bank in Washington, DC. There are some Ethiopians there who want to support localization efforts. Exactly at what level and other details I don't know yet. So I've put other things on hold to prepare a presentation for Thursday. It would be great if they could hire some translators or provide any other support. If they do launch a project it will have to be very well defined, detailing the exact outputs. Right now it is still uncertain what must be transalted to produce a minimal suitable localization for a new language. I did post to the ubuntu-translators email list to ask, but did not receive a reply. I'll keep searching and asking in different places. I recommend waiting to contact Dr Taye until a project is exactly defined, we need to work on this -sponsored or not sponsored. I mean here having a list of items to be translated, their sequence, target platform (Ubuntu, Edubuntu, both?), IM support, font support, calendar support, do we seek full support of ubuntu in the scope of the project -initial stage or later stage, or just our own ISOs, can we estimate any time and cost to complete the work, to maintain it? Dr Taye may want these details to know what it is that he would be supporting. On the other hand he may be willing to support the project just in principal. Potential participants and sponsors would also want these details clearly laid out. Anyway, I'll report back Thursday night if any good news comes from the WB. Even if it does, it can take them 3 months - 1 year to begin their support. cheers, /Daniel From tefera በ mekuria.com Fri Jun 23 12:13:25 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Fri Jun 23 12:04:38 2006 Subject: [am-translate] And ask why a nation of 70 million Ethiopia did not do that!!!! Message-ID: Debian gives Linux a Bhutanese touch Dahna McConnachie 22/06/2006 09:11:35 Bhutan, a country of 700,000 inhabitants that sits between China and India, now has its own Debian-based operating system in the national language, Dzongkha. The system, launched earlier this month, was built by the local Department of Information Technology and consists of a CD which can be either installed or used as a live CD. The installation system uses Morphix rather than the standard Debian Installer which was not ready at the time of release The CD includes a complete set of Dzongkha-localized applications, namely the Gnome environment, the OpenOffice suite, the Mozilla Web browser, the Evolution mail reader and GAIM as instant messaging application. Debian developer Christian Perrier was invited by the Bhutanese government to give a keynote speech at the launch. Perrier said it is important that users have computers that work in their own language, and that free software leads the way over proprietary software in allowing this to happen. "They [the Bhutanese people] were very responsive to the idea that the main challenge of free software is for countries to keep the knowledge and develop it in their own country for the benefit of themselves and their culture," he said. "Getting more localization in a distribution brings the operating system as close as possible to the user. In order to do this, you need to translate all the material, from the installation system through to the documentation." Internationalization in Debian is a long-running story. The Woody installer, which came out in 2002, supported 16 languages and Sarge which came out in 2005 supported 42 languages. Etch, the current version in development which is due out in December can be installed in 63 languages. Perrier heads up the effort to find translators for as many languages as possible through the Debian-i18n mailing list. "We are working hard on coming up with a strong framework for i18n that will enable people to more easily customize Debian in their own language," he said. The "i18n framework" in Debian is currently a collection of small pieces that are not always related. "This is actually inherent of the very widely distributed nature of the development of Debian, when compared to more monolithic projects like KDE, or Gnome," Perrier said. A project was started in May this year, in collaboration with WordForge, to develop a framework to assist all i18n and l10n work in Debian. "This is a very ambitious project which could lead to something that may seem similar to Ubuntu's Rosetta project. The main difference is that it will be entirely based on free software and it will try to establish some communication standards for interaction between l10n projects," Perrier said. From tefera በ mekuria.com Tue Jun 27 07:01:25 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Tue Jun 27 06:52:23 2006 Subject: [am-translate] Ubuntu Amharic translation team mailing list Message-ID: This is to announce the creation of mailing list for Ubuntu-amharic-translation. Its purpose of course is to discuss issues concerning localization and translation of ubuntu in to Amharic. we Will use it as a contact address for the Ubuntu Amharic translation team too. Of course one can contact any of the team members and the owner through their personal e-mail too. the list address is ubuntu-l10n-am@lists.ubuntu.com Members of the team https://launchpad.net/people/ubuntu-l10n-am please do subscribe at https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-l10n-am as soon as possible. መልካም ሥራ ለሁላችን. From tefera በ mekuria.com Tue Jun 27 14:55:46 2006 From: tefera በ mekuria.com (TG) Date: Tue Jun 27 14:46:51 2006 Subject: [am-translate] translateathon Message-ID: The fallowing page some very usefull tips for localisation. Especially the idea of The fallowing page some very usefull tips for localisation. Especially the idea of translateathon is very apealing. http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/guide/translateathon http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/guide/start please comment. is very apealing. http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/guide/translateathon http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/guide/start please comment.