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imron -



Quote:

However, his point about Wireless Network Cards seems valid, from what I've seen. Many of them use
proprietary, windows-only drivers, making it anywhere from very hard to impossible to get it
working on Linux.

This is the beauty of the Live-CD. It lets you check that every works fine before you actually
install anything.



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renzhe -

I second the suggestion of contacting the local Linux Users Group (LUG). Usually, they are a good
source of information for new users without linux-savvy friends.

As for the fonts, just copy all your Windows fonts (burn them on a CD or something) into your
linux fonts directory. As long as you have good fonts, they will look great under Linux. There are
also many freely available Chinese fonts out there which you can download if your distribution
doesn't come with them. The freely available MS core fonts packate for web surfing comes with a
couple of nice Chinese fonts, and they should already be on your windows partition.

Most modern Linux applications "speak" unicode, and SCIM is a wonderful input method, so there
should be zero problems with entering and reading Chinese on a modern Linux distro.










imron -

I'd long-ago copied the Windows fonts, but I still have a couple of unresolved issues.

Firstly, when the chinese-fonts are anti-aliased, they become excessively blurry (far more so than
under either windows or Mac OSX). So I either have to turn off anti-aliasing and have ugly fonts,
or I have to have blurry fonts. Neither of which is an appealing option, and I haven't been able
to find some middle ground setting.

The second problem is getting chinese fonts and English fonts working well together. What I'd like
is for all non-chinese characters to use Tahoma, and for all Chinese characters to use 宋体 or
some other Chinese font. However because I did a Chinese install and the default locale is
Chinese, fontconfig always makes a Chinese font first in the font selection process, meaning that
all English characters use the butt-ugly glyphs from the Chinese font rather than from Tahoma.

After playing around with my local .font.conf I managed to force Tahoma to be first font chosen
and then fall back on the Chinese font, however this only seems to work for KDE apps (I'm running
under KDE). When a Gnome app runs and uses Chinese, all that appears are square blocks.

If you have any useful suggestions for how to solve the above 2 problems, I'd love to hear it.










renzhe -

1) The first problem has to do with font hinting. Apparently, there is a patented method for
storing hints on how to display anti-aliased fonts at different sizes. The modern X.org server can
read and apply these just fine.

The problem is that, as it's patented, they are not allowed to distribute it in the US and some
other countries, which is why it's disabled in most distributions. If you want to use this, you
have to build your X Server from source, because the functionality is there.

Here is some background info: http://freetype.sourceforge.net/patents.html
Some howtos which may hint at the solution (haven't read them in depth):
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/..._Configuration and
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Xorg_and_Fonts

Another thing that you can do if you use an LCD display is to turn on subpixel rendering -- it
should be available in your KDE configuration dialog somewhere. Due to the design of LCDs, you can
sometimes activate "parts" of pixels by using only the red or blue channel, which results in
higher percieved resolution (with minor discoloration which is usually not a problem).

I have very good results by using subpixel rendering and the default X autohinter (I haven't
compiled in the bytecode interpreter). The fonts may look a bit better on OSX, but they look very
good.

This, however, will not work on a CRT monitor.

2) For KDE, you can start the qtconfig tool, which comes with qt, which KDE is based on. Since Qt
deals with all the font rendering, you can usually fix things there by defining font
substitutions. It sounds like you did something similar.

This will only work for apps using Qt (like KDE apps). For Gtk-based apps, you should look at
configuring pango, the font rendering engine used by GNOME folks. I'm not sure how this works, and
Mozilla-based apps have their own configuration for this.

But what you should look into is using a UTF-8 locale, like zh_cn.utf-8, instead of zh_cn.gb or
whatever. This is what I'm using, and I also find it good, because unicode is the future. I don't
have font-substitution issues while using this, and you still get the benefits of a Chinese locale
(which for me amounts to having SCIM work).

This may be impractical if you're dealing with lots of GB-2312 materials, which is pretty much
everything out there, unfortunately.










Hero Doug -

I was about to post a new thread when I came across this one, so I'll continue it. First off I
have to say to the other's who asked for help, I can't provide any, but I would love some.

Here's what I want Linux to do.

1) I want to use an IME that's as good as Google's. SCIM wasn't as good in my opinion.

2) Program localization: My wife is Chinese and uses QQ and a few other Chinese programs. The
problem is that when I login to an English session, QQ (through Wine) displays question marks. If
I login to a Chinese session everything displays fine. In Windows I can use English but still have
QQ display all the Chinese just fine. Does anyone know how this can be done in Linux?

3) I found that the internet was faster on Windows then it was on Ubuntu and Fedora. It's a PPPOE
connection. This is obvisouly important. I don't need to download any soft(spy)ware to use the
internet so that's not a problem. Are there any general tweeks that can be done to improve that.

4) The last thing is QQ. This is the one must have program as pidgin is a sub-par messenger in my
opinion. I remember the last time we used we couldn't figure out how to use the webcams (I don't
think you could actually). So running QQ under Wine is a must, this shouldn't be too big of a
problem; but using SCIM on an application running under Wine might be. Thought's on this?

P.S. I know the answers will vary between distros, but any help is welcome. Thanks.










Battosai -

Here are some suggestions :
Scim is not as good as google though it does have more options like typing in cantonese or 吴
language. You can add a dictionary to it and it will make it much better. I did that to Scim-anthy
(japanese) and it improved dramatically.
For QQ - try eva ,here is some more info . If you want to run a Chinese app using wine on an
English session - read this.
try this as well
For internet speed did you try to disable ipv6? (here)
you can also create a local DNS cache for faster browsing (here )
Finally -use Opera instead of Firefox (at least until Firefox3 comes out)










Hero Doug -

Battosai thanks. Those links look so good I think I'm going to give Ubuntu another try. I really
love Linux so much, it's just always a few issues here and there that make me switch back to
Windows.

If Wine works with CJK then I hopefully won't need that other messenger.

Anyways, I'm going to begin the download now and give it a try soon after. I'll report back with
my results.










Hero Doug -

Ok, I have a quick update here about switching to Linux.

I downloaded the Ubuntu 7.1 (gutsy) LiveCD and found that there was a problem with my graphics
card. When the GUI displayed (or when it would have) the video signal would get lost. The
workaround I read for this is to download the alternate CD (the text based installer) and install
form that. If I were to do that I would still have the problem of the incorrect video driver
settings.

The second easiest fix I saw was to use a Windows partition and download a driver to read/write to
the linux partition and manually make the changes, then re-boot into Linux.

I decided to just download feisty fawn and avoid the whole mess. The install from the LiveCD
worked fine (albiet slowly).

Anyways I'm now working my way though the issues I posted above, and I'm posting the solutions
here since I know someone else will have the same trouble I ran into.

Internet Speed
When I first tried Ubuntu the internet was horrid. I couldn't even load a page. Iswitched back to
Windows after a while. This time when I installed Ubuntu it was blazing fast, until this morning.
I had the same problems again. So I took the advice of Battosai and changed one setting (to use
Ipv4 instead of DCHP).



Quote:

Note: If you don't know how to connect to the internet go to System -> Help and Support

It'll list some common questions, one of which is how to connect to the internet. Click that,
follow the instructions.

If you don't see a link stating how to connect to the internet, type "internet" into the search
bar. It should bring up a link called "internet". Click it, follow the instructions.

To change the network connection from DCHP to IPv4 go to

System -> Administration -> Network

In the tab titled "Connections" I clicked Wired connection (there'll most likely be two
connections, a modem, and your actual connection to the internet). In the properties section the
first option is titled Configuration. I changed that from DCHP to "Local zeroconf Network (IPv4
ll)". I didn't change anything else.

I need to state that I'm not a Linux networking guru, and you may not have the same settings as I
do, but it should be similar to what I have. This is how I fixed my connectivity problems (or seem
to have anyways), here's hoping it works for you.

Software Sources
In "System -> Administration -> Software Sources" you have the option to select your download
location. I've found that ftp://ftp.twaren.net/Linux/Ubuntu/ubuntu/ is quite fast (over 200kbs
fast (remember, this is China)).

Change it by going to custom server, and look in Taiwan's section, it's in there.

Language Support
During the install process it tried to download some language packs (when the install was around
77% complete). I pressed the skip button and the install finished up quickly. However, this left
me without Chinese support.

I went to "System -> Administration -> Language Support" and checked Chinese. I proceded to
download the language files.

One thing I'd like to note is that the download kept timing out (this was before I adjusted my
internet settings). I was prompted with a dialog box asking if I wanted to continue without
downloading the rest of the packages, or to cancel.

Pick cancel. If you continue you'll only be installing half of what you need. Instead, you can go
back into the control panel, and check on Chinese again, and download the remaining files. The
files you already downloaded are still there so you will only download the missing files. When
they have all been downloaded, then install the language pack.

SCIM
When SCIm is installed you're going to have a lot of input options. I went to "System ->
Preferences -> SCIM Input Method Setup". In there go to "Im Engine -> GLobal Setup". I disabled
everything but English and Chinese simplified. Furthermore, if you click on arrow beside Chinese
simplified you'll be presented with all the options you can use for entering Chinese text. I
personally think they all suck except for the one that's listed in Chinese writing. I'm sorry, my
Chinese isn't good enough to type out the characters, but it's the only one with Chinese so you
can't miss it. I found this one to be damn close to the Google IME.

Opera
I don't use Firefox, I use Opera; so there won't be any help here for how to type Chinese in
firefox.

To get Chinese working in Opera go to http://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/linux/ and download the
static (latest "stable") version, don't get shared, and don't install it from the repisitory. This
is the easiest way I've found to get SCIM working with Opera.

I'm going to try Wine and QQ now, so I'll post again when that's over with.













anthony_barker -

Bit of a pitty that Windows is the default in China. A lot of sites seem to be only windows media
and don't support the linux browsers so well.

I have a feeling that in 4-10 years Microsoft will turn on the screws in China for their 100 a
computer tax via the US government like they did in Taiwan a few years ago.










lilongyue -

I switched to Ubuntu for my main internet surfing computer in China, and love it. It isn't
perfect, but I'll take anything over having to worry about friggin' viruses all the time! I've
also never been a big Windows fan. I started moving away from Windows when I got my first Mac. If
you have the money, and are in the market for a new laptop, get a Mac! You can find them easily in
China, although they are a bit more expensive than in the West (although rumor has it that they
are the same or cheaper in Hong Kong). You can always install Windows via Boot Camp if you really
need to use it.

I also recommend using Wine (www.winehq.org/) with Ubuntu so you can use any Windows programs you
miss. My friend started playing a Windows game in Ubuntu via Wine and had no problem. There is a
long thread about whether or not Window's viruses can infect your computer via Wine in the Ubuntu
forums. To make a long story short, so long as you don't tell the virus to run yourself there's no
problem. Even if you purposefully run it (which someone did just as an experiment) it can't really
mess thing up. The virus used by the poster downloaded hundreds of copies of itself, but the
viruses weren't able to run themselves within the Ubuntu environment. So, so long as you don't
tell the virus to run, there's no problems!












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