OpenType support in OpenOffice 3.2 (Greek)
The new version 3.2 of OpenOffice.org is being developed and you can currently download the release candidate for your testing purposes.
A big enhancement in OpenOffice.org 3.2 is the support for OpenType fonts. A typical Linux user is able to do most of the tasks with TrueType fonts, however any new exciting fonts available are mostly OpenType fonts. So, OpenOffice.org 3.2 (to be released this month) has OpenType support and most likely Ubuntu 10.04 is going to have OpenOffice.org 3.2.
You can install OpenOffice 3.2 RC (or final, in a few weeks) on your Ubuntu by downloading the relevant archive from download the release candidate. Extract the files and enter the DEBS/ subdirectory. Then, run sudo dpkg -i *.deb in order to install the development version of OpenOffice 3.2. The installed files are located in /opt/ooo-dev3/program/ and you run now run swriter (for Writer). It is quite possible there is already a relevant PPA repository; tell me in the comments and I’ll update here.
We test with the Greek Font Society OpenType fonts, which are distributed with the OpenFont License. The Debian/Ubuntu repositories already have the GFS fonts packaged for you. You can either install the fonts with your package manager (open synaptic package manager, search for ttf-gfs), or run from the command line
sudo apt-get install ttf-gfs-artemisia ttf-gfs-baskerville ttf-gfs-bodoni-classic ttf-gfs-complutum ttf-gfs-didot-classic ttf-gfs-gazis ttf-gfs-neohellenic ttf-gfs-solomos ttf-gfs-theokritos
Here is a screenshot of the PDF file of GFS Fonts Sample. With OpenOffice.org 3.1 or earlier these fonts would not appear in Writer and would be replaced with the default OpenOffice.org font. In addition, if you tried to export to PDF, you would get the default font (that is, the OpenType fonts do not get embedded in the PDF file either).
Here is the .odf file of the GFS Fonts Sample. If you load it in OpenOffice.org 3.1, you will notice that the default OpenOffice.org font will appear for each line in the sample file. If you load the sample .odt file in OpenOffice.org 3.2, you need to have the GFS OpenType fonts installed beforehand.
The GFS fonts support Greek, Greek Polytonic and several ancient Greek characters. See How to type Greek, Greek Polytonic in Linux for instructions on how to configure and use the Greek keyboard layout in Linux. Note that to type Greek Polytonic, you do not need anymore to select the Polytonic layout; the default «Greek» keyboard layout has been updated so that you can type Greek, Greek Polytonic and Ancient Greek characters. Ergo, άᾷᾂϡϖϝ€ϕͼϾʹ͵ϐϛ.
Συνέδριο ΕΛΛΑΚ: Workshop εξελληνισμού
Στις 19 Ιουνίου 2009 έγινε το 2ρο workshop του εξελληνισμού ελεύθερου λογισμικού στο συνέδριο δημιουργών ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ.
Αντιπροσωπεύσαμε κοινότητες εξελληνισμού όπως OpenOffice.org, XFCE, Mozilla, GNOME και OLPC/Sugerlabs.
Ήταν μια πολύ καλή ευκαιρία να γνωριστούμε μεταξύ μας και είναι η δεύτερη φορά που έγινε μια τέτοια συνάντηση.
Καταγράψαμε τις παρακάτω ενέργειες,
- Κοινοί κανόνες μεταφράσεων. Ο Γιάννης Κασκαμανίδης ανέλαβε να στείλει γράμμα στις τυπικές λίστες τοπικοποίησης για έναρξη της συλλογής των κοινών κανόνων μεταφράσεων.
- Μεταφραστική μνήνη. Να γίνεται χρήση μεταφραστικής μνήμης, τουλάχιστον ένα μεγάλο έργο. Όταν πρόκειται να κάνετε μια νέα μετάφραση, είναι καλό να εφαρμόσετε μεταφραστική μνήμη που να προέρχεται από κάποιο μεγάλο έργο όπως το GNOME. Οδηγίες υπάρχουν στο http://wiki.gnome.gr/doku.php?id=translation:translationmemory
- Ζήτημα Natural language processing. Για τη βελτίωση της αποτελεσματικότητας της εφαρμογής της μεταφραστικής μνήμης, είναι θεμιτό να γνωρίζει το λογισμικό τα χαρακτηριστικά της ελληνικής γλώσσας. Αν υπάρχει ενδιαφέρον για προγραμματισμό για να επιτευχθεί κάτι τέτοιο, επικοινωνείστε εδώ.
- Λεξικό ορολογίας. Είναι θεμιτό να έχουμε ένα λεξικό για τους κοινούς όρους στις μεταφράσεις ΕΛΛΑΚ. Η προτίμηση είναι να παρέχει μια σειρά από ευκολίας για τους μεταφραστές, οπότε με τις οδηγίες που παρέχουμε είναι ένα ανοικτό θέμα για όποιον θα ήθελε να βοηθήσει.
- εφαρμογή web για εισαγωγή/γρήγορα αναζήτηση
- http://lists.gnome.gr/pipermail/team-gnome.gr/2009-April/001971.html
- ή χρήση λογιστικού φύλλου στο Google Docs;
- Βοήθεια σε δημιουργούς για βελτίωση των hints στα μεταφρασμένα μηνύματα. Ο στόχος εδώ είναι να βελτιώσουμε τον πηγαίο κώδικα ώστε δύσκολα μηνύματα να έχουν τώρα υποδείξεις που θα βοηθούν τους μεταφραστές. Κάτι τέτοιο μπορεί να γίνει από τρίτα άτομα που έχουν λογαριασμό στο αποθετήριο (για παράδειγμα, για το GNOME είναι οι Κώστας Παπαδήμας, Νίκος Χαρωνιτάκης και Σίμος Ξενιτέλλης), όπου θα εφαρμόζουν τα σχόλια που δέχονται από τους μεταφραστές της ομάδας εξελληνισμού. Είναι σημαντικό να μην αφιερώνουν χρόνο οι βασικοί δημιουργοί του έργου σε τέτοια ζητήματα που μπορούν να γίνουν από άλλους.
- OLPC. Ξάνθη, πιλοτική εφαρμογή με XO-1. Έχει δρομολογηθεί η μετάφραση του λογισμικού eToys ενώ υπάρχει ανάγκη για τη μετάφραση εγχειριδίων. Περισσότερα στο http://groups.google.com/group/olpc-l10n-el και http://translate.sugarlabs.org/el/
How to type Greek, Greek Polytonic in Linux
Update 2010: Please see the docs.google.com edition of the guide as it has the latest material. See link below.
There is a new guide on how to write Greek and Greek Polytonic in Linux, and in particular using the latest versions of Linux distributions.
https://docs.google.com/View?docID=dccdrjqk_4cqjn9zcj (LATEST VERSION)
The guide shows in detail how to add the Greek keyboard layout to your Linux desktop, and how to write Greek, Greek Polytonic and other Ancient Greek characters.
The guide is also available in both ODT and PDF format. (both files are somewhat obsolete. use google docs URL from above instead)
For a Greek version of the guide, please see http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_3gx3bq5f9 (does not update as often as the English version)
We attach the HTML version of the guide in this post. The docs.google.com version is the latest, please read that instead.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_4cqjn9zcj
Ενημερωμένος οδηγός γραφής ελληνικών (και πολυτονικό)
Ενημέρωσα τον οδηγό για το γράψιμο ελληνικών (και πολυτονικό) και είναι διαθέσιμος από τη σελίδα
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_3gx3bq5f9
Είναι διαθέσιμος [Translate]
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC “-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN”
“http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd”>
<article lang=”en”>
<section><title>Title</title>
<para>ëãáâṩẫëĝéõōåőȩçą</para>
<para>ЁЂыњѨѬѺѸѶѦщЖЊЌЍШЩзф</para>
<para>ᾶᾳὰέᾁᾂδϕϟϸϡϸϸαϷϕϲδϕϛ€ϕ©ϖϐͻ©ϖϐ</para>
</section>
</article>
This is an issue that I would appreciate if someone could help in solving.
The above document (mytestfile.xml) is a DocBook XML document with text in many scripts (latin, cyrillic and greek). Normally it was difficult to convert to PDF, until recently.
Now, one can run
dblatex --backend=xetex --verbose mytestfile.xml
(requires to install the dblatex package and any dependencies) and it creates mytestfile.pdf. If you have a fresh installation of Ubuntu 8.10 and you go through the process of installing these packages, please make a list of them, to use as advice for new users.
Generated PDF document with lang=en
Since we use XeTeX as a backend, we can work with Unicode text directly, which is the proper thing to do. Above you can see that all characters are shown (except a few obscure ones that are not found in DejaVu Sans and are shown as boxes). You can see Latin (+Extended), Cyrillic (+Extended), Greek (+Extended) in the same document.
Generated PDF document with lang=el
The issue arises when we change the lang modifier in the document above, from en to el. Here you see Τιτλε, which in fact is Title but with the characters replaced with their Greek equivalent. This is a sign for non-Unicode, 8-bit encoding conversion issue. In addition, some of the rest of the characters are shown, and apparently a strange conversion took place.
What we need to do is figure out is how to fix xetex when ‘lang=el’. There is some work to get Greek XeTeX support upstream, and there are instructions on how to add local Greek XeTeX support in your distribution.
What we need is instructions on how to fix the Greek XeTeX support in Ubuntu 8.10, and test that dblatex can generate documents correctly when lang=el.
For your testing, here are the files mytestfile-en.pdf, mytestfile-el.pdf, mytestfile-en.xml, mytestfile-el.xml.
Updated to Ubuntu 8.10
I just updated my system to Ubuntu 8.10. Since I had a separate partition for /home, I opted to actually reinstall while retaining the files in /home. The rest of the post is a laundry list of tips.
I could not find a blank CD or CDRW, so I opted to write the installation 8.10 ISO to a USB stick, then rebooted with the USB stick and finally installed. It was really fast and and convenient.
All hardware was properly detected (sound card: snd-hda-intel, wifi: iwl3945, bluetooth, intel graphics card). Regarding the sound card, some kind soul probably submitted the PCI ID and model information to the ALSA project, so there is no need anymore to specify manually.
I upgraded the stock OpenOffice.org 2.4.1 to OpenOffice.org 3.0. There are many ways to do it, however the easiest is to simply add the software source
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ubuntu intrepid main
and let the system update itself automatically. For more on this, see the instructions at softpedia.
OpenOffice.org does not support OpenType fonts yet. I had the impression that OpenOffice.org 3.0 could see OpenType fonts but had trouble printing or exporting to PDF. My test showed that OOo 3.0 could not see OpenType fonts such as the ttf-gfs-* fonts, even when trying to force loading with spadmin. OpenType support is scheduled for the next version of OpenOffice.org. For now, we can use the wide range of TTF fonts.
I installed VirtualBox by adding the repository details described at the VirtualBox Linux Download webpage. Then, I tried to search with Add/Remove or Synaptic, however I could not find the virtuabox package. Only the virtualbox-ose packages were visible. It appears there is some sort of bug in the package description. If you open Synaptic, then click on the Origin (Προέλευση) filter which shows packages per repository. Select the virtualbox repository and you can eventually see virtualbox-2.0. Pretty weird.
For Evolution Mail, previously one would package the files manually and then restore them. This was error-prone because the account information are saved in gconf, the passwords in ~/.gnome2_private, etc. The proper solution is to remember to perform a backup before installing a new version of Ubuntu. In Ubuntu 8.04 and Evolution (from GNOME 2.22) there is an option to backup your settings, which includes mails and all. You finally restore in your new system; when the new Evolution starts for the first time, you are asked whether you want to restore a previous backup.
Firefox would freeze momentarily for some strange reason. I run from the command line and I noticed that some pages that had references to Flash material would freeze Firefox while trying to locate the Flash plugin. This was solved be installing flashplugin-nonfree.
I installed the updated Greek layout, so I can now type ϡϠϸϕϟαϛϚϖϐʹ͵ϻϺ«»ᾶᾅἒᾥ in the same layout.
Update #1: Ubuntu 8.10 works better with a dual head configuration. In System/Preferences/Screen resolution, you can activate the second display. The utility realises that the (currently) hard-coded maximum virtual display is not big enough to accomodate both monitors, and it asks you to edit automatically the xorg configuration file in order to add the setting for you. After a logout and re-login sequences, dual head works. Sadly for my graphics card, this means that there is no 3D support in this mode. With Intel 965GM, if the virtual screen does not fit in 2048×2048, then you no can haz 3D. Actually, if I align the displays vertically, they do fit and I would be able to get 3D.
Update #2: Time to put the system temperature sensors (CPU, hard disk). For the backend, we install the lm-sensors and hddtemp packages. With lm-sensors, we need to run sudo sensors-detect so that the appropriate settings can be detected. If you have a recent Intel CPU, this will probably find that you need to add the coretemp kernel module to /etc/modules, then reboot to activate it. For the hard disk temperature, simply install hddtemp and choose yes when prompted to add the hddtemp service. For the front-end, install the sensors-applet applet. You need to logout and login again so that this applet, called Hardware Sensors Monitor, appears in the applets list. Once you add, click to enable all available sensors in the preferences.
Οδηγός πολυτονικού – Write Greek Polytonic
Update 10th May 2009: If you have Ubuntu 9.04 (or Fedora 11), Greek and Greek Polytonic works out of the box with the default Greek layout. For more, see http://simos.info/blog/archives/888 The rest of this blog post remains only for historical purposes and does not apply any more.
Update 17th Nov 2008: If you have Ubuntu 8.10 (or Fedora 10, etc) and you just need to write Greek Polytonic without any hassle, simply add the Greek Polytonic layout from the Keyboard Layout settings, and that’s it! This post describes how to install an enhanced layout that adds together in the same layout all Unicode characters from the Greek and Greek Extended Unicode block, and specifically archaic characters.
This post is about writing Greek Polytonic using a new combined Greek layout that supports Greek, Greek Polytonic/Attic (ᾂᾷᾰᾱᾢᾥ) and Archaic (ͼϾϡϠϲϹϟϞ…). This layout is already added to the xkeyboard-config project, however it did not make it to Ubuntu 8.10.
You may want to add this layout manually to your distribution. If your distribution is based on GNOME 2.22 (as in Ubuntu 8.04), you will be able to use Greek and Archaic (Polytonic would not work without further changes). If your distribution is based on GNOME 2.24 or newer (as in Ubuntu 8.10), you will be able to write Greek, Polytonic and Archaic characters.
wget http://simos.info/ubuntu/gr -O gr
sudo cp /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gr /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gr.ORIGINAL
sudo cp gr /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/
You type Greek Polytonic by pressing, for example, AltGr + [ + α = ᾶ, AltGr + } + α =ᾱ
You type Greek Archaic characters with AltGr + k = ϟ, AltGr + K =Ϟ, and so on.
Same instructions, but in Greek:
Αυτή είναι η ανακοίνωση για τον οδηγό γραφής πολυτονικού με το σύστημα ΧΚΒ (λειτουργικό σύστημα Linux),
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_1g6g6ncgw
Ο οδηγός δεν είναι πλήρης και δεν αντικατοπτρίζει την τρέχουσα κατάσταση, μιας και έχουν γίνει σημαντικές αλλαγές πριν από λίγες εβδομάδες.
Ο στόχος της ανάρτησης αυτής είναι να προσκαλέσει άτομα να βελτιώσουν το κείμενο.
Ενημέρωση:
Αν έχετε Ubuntu 8.10, μπορείτε να βάλετε τη διάταξη http://simos.info/ubuntu/gr που θα επιτρέψει να γράψετε χαρακτήρες όπως ϡϠϛϚϟϞϖϐʹ͵ͼϾ. Αυτό γίνεται πατώντας AltGr και διάφορους χαρακτήρες του αλφαβήτου.
Ακόμα, θα μπορείτε να γράψετε πολυτονικό από τη βασική ελληνική διάταξη, με χρήση του AltGr και των χαρακτήρων ;'][. Για παράδειγμα, AltGr + [ + α = ᾶ.
wget http://simos.info/ubuntu/gr -O gr
sudo cp /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gr /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gr.ORIGINAL
sudo cp gr /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/
Μετά πάμε και επιλέγουμε την ελληνική βασική διάταξη (προεπιλογή, όχι πια το Πολυτονικό).
Αν έχετε Ubuntu 8.04, τότε η παραπάνω τροποποίηση θα επιτρέψει να γράφετε τα ϡϠϟϞ κτλ (όχι πολυτονικό).
Περισσότερη ορολογία πληροφορικής στα ελληνικά
Λαμβάνω κάθε δύο μήνες το ηλεκτρονικό περιοδικό της ΕΛΕΤΟ, της Ελληνικής Εταιρίας Ορολογίας που ονομάζεται Ορόγραμμα. Στο Ορόγραμμα υπάρχουν χρήσιμες πληροφορίες για την απόδοση όρων στα ελληνικά. Ακόμα, δείχνει πως είναι δυνατόν να έχει κάποιος ένα ποιοτικό φύλλο με μικρά έξοδα διότι είναι ηλεκτρονικό.
Στο τελευταίο τεύχος (Ιανουάριος/Φεβρουάριος) γίνεται αναφορά για τα με το χέρι, χειροκίνητος και χειρωνακτικός, και τα πολύ συχνά λάθη που γίνονται στη χρήση. Σε κάθε τεύχος έχουν τέτοια ενδιαφέροντα και χρήσιμα για τις μεταφράσεις που κάνουμε (για το ελεύθερο λογισμικό), που είναι παράξενο το πόσο σχετικά είναι για μας. Μια υποψία που έχω είναι ότι κοιτούν τις μεταφράσεις που κάνω.
Στο ίδιο τεύχος γίνεται αναφορά για ένα γλωσσάρι όρων της Τεχνικής Επιτροπής 21 του ΕΛΟΤ. Πρόκειται για όρους σχετικούς με την ίδια την ορολογία. Αρκετοί από τους όρους έχουν σχέση με το ελεύθερο λογισμικό,
download {verb} καταφορτώνω, κατεβάζω
upload {verb} αναφορτώνω, ανεβάζω
parsing συνταξανάλυση
concatenation συναλύσωση
Σε κάθε περίπτωση, το GNOME 2.22.x έχει βγει, και τυχόν αλλαγές στην ορολογία που χρησιμοποιούμε θα εξεταστεί κατά την νέα έκδοση.
Υπάρχουν όροι που χρησιμοποιούμε στο GNOME που θα ήταν καλό να συζήσουμε σε χώρους ευρύτερους από την κοινότητα ελεύθερου λογισμικού. Ελπίζω να υπάρξει η ευκαιρία για κάτι τέτοιο στο μέλλον.
How to easily modify a program in Ubuntu (updated)?
Some time ago we talked about how to modify easily a program in Ubuntu. We gave as an example the modification of gucharmap; we got the deb source package, made the change, compiled, created new .deb files and installed them.
We go the same (well, similar) route here, by modifying the gtk+ library (!!!). The purpose of the modification is to allow us to type, by default, all sort of interesting Unicode characters, including ⓣⓗⓘⓢ , ᾅᾷ, ṩ, and many more.
The result of this exercise is to create replacement .deb packages for the gtk+ library that we are going to install in place of the system libraries. Because these new libraries will not be original Ubuntu packages, the update manager will be pestering us to rollback to the official gtk+ packages. This is actually good in case you want to switch back; you will have the enhanced functionality for as long as you postpone that update.
There is a chance we might screw up our system, so please make backups, or have a few drinks first and come back. I take no responsibility if something bad happens on your system. If you are having any second thoughts, do not follow the next steps; use the safer alternative procedure. You may try however this guide just for the kicks; up to the dpkg command below, no changes are being made to your system.
We use Ubuntu 7.10 here. This should work in other versions, though your mileage may vary.
The compilation procedure takes time (about 30 minutes) and space. Make sure you use a partition with >2GB of free space. We are not going to use up 2GB (a bit less than 1GB), but it’s nice not to fill up partitions.
We are going to use the generic instructions on how to recompile a debian package by ducea.
First of all, install the development packages,
sudo apt-get install devscripts build-essential
Next, we use the apt-get source command to get the source code of the GTK+ 2 library,
cd /home/ubuntu/bigpartition_over2GB/apt-get source libgtk2.0-0
We then pull in any dependencies that GTK+ may require. They are normally about a dozen packages, but we do not have to worry for the details.
apt-get build-deplibgtk2.0-0
At this stage we need to touch up the source code of GTK+ before we go into the compilation phase. Visit the bug report #321896 – Synch gdkkeysyms.h/gtkimcontextsimple.c with X.org 6.9/7.0 and download the patch (look under the Attachment section). You should get a file named gtk-compose-update.patch. If you have a look at the patch, you will notice that it expects to find the source of gtk+ in a directory called gtk+. Making a link solves the problem,
ln -s libgtk2.0-0 gtk+
We then attempt to apply the patch (perform a dry run), just in case.
patch -p0 --dry-run < /tmp/gtk-compose-update.patch
If this does not show an error message, you can the command again without the –dry-run.
patch -p0 < /tmp/gtk-compose-update.patch
Finally, we are ready to build our fresh GTK+ library.
cd libgtk2.0-0debuild -us -uc
This will take time to complete, so go and do some healthy cooking.
At the end of the compilation, if all went OK, you should have about a dozen .deb files created. These are one directory higher (do a “cd ..“). To install, use dpkg,
dpkg -i *.deb
If you have any other deb files in this directory, it’s good to move them away before running the command. If all went ok, the .deb files should install without a hitch.
The final step is to restart your system. To test the new support, see the last section at this post. Use Firefox and OpenOffice.org to type those Unicode characters.
If you managed to wade through all these steps, I would appreciate it if you could post a comment.
Good luck!
Droid fonts from Google (Android SDK)
Update 10Feb2009: The Droid fonts are now available from android.git.kernel.org (Download tar.gz archive), under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Ascender (the company who created Droid), has now a dedicated website at http://www.droidfonts.com/ (thanks Rex!). At this dedicated website, Ascender presents the Droid Pro family which has several additions to Droid. For the open-source crowd, it is important to have the initial Droid font family dual-licensed under the “OpenFont License”, which would enable the best use with the rest of the OFL licensed fonts.
Two years ago, Google bought a start-up called Android in order to deliver an open platform for mobile applications. A few days ago the Android SDK has been released and you can develop now Android applications that can run in the emulator. Android handsets are expected at some point next year.
Even if you do not plan to develop applications for Android, you can still run the emulator which is functional, includes quite a few samples, and comes with a browser shown above. To get it, download the Android SDK for your system, uncompress it and run
./android_sdk_linux_m3-rc20a/tools/emulator
An interesting aspect of Android is that it comes with a set of fonts that have been specially designed for mobile devices, the Droid fonts. The fonts are embedded in the Android image, in android_sdk_linux_m3-rc20a/tools/lib/images/system.img, a clever guy managed to extract them and a modest guy corrected me (Damien’s blog to download).
The fonts are probably licensed under the same license as the SDK (Apache License), however it is better to hear from Google first.
In the meantime, here is a screenshot of Ubuntu 7.10 with Droid.
Update: To extract the fonts from the SDK, run the emulator with the -console parameter. The emulator starts and at the same time you get a shell to the filesystem of the running emulator. You can locate the fonts in system/fonts/. Once located the full path of a file, you can extract with ./adb pull system/fonts/DroidSans.ttf /tmp/DroidSans.ttf (thanks cosmix for the tip).
StixFonts, finally available (beta)!
The STIX Fonts project (website) has been developing for over 10 years a font suitable to be used in academic publications. It boasts support from Elsevier, IEEE and other academic publishers or associations.
A few days ago, they published a beta version of the font in an effort to get public feedback. The beta period runs until the 15th December.
 |
| STIX Fonts Beta showing Greek (Regular), from STIX Fonts Beta |
STIX Fonts Beta currently support modern Greek. An effort to get support for Greek Polytonic did not work out well a few years back.
 |
| STIX Fonts Beta showing Greek (Italic), from STIX Fonts Beta |
The main benefit of STIX Fonts is the support for mathematical and other technical symbols. This helps when writing academic publications and other technical documents.
 |
| STIX Fonts Beta showing Greek (Bold), from STIX Fonts Beta |
STIX Fonts have extensive support of mathematical symbols, symbols that exist in Unicode Plane-1.
 |
| STIX Fonts Beta showing Greek (Bold Italic), from STIX Fonts Beta |
If there is any modification that we would like to have in STIX fonts, we should do now. Once they are released, they will be widely distributed. Currently, Fedora has packaged STIX Fonts and made them available already.
Cannot write Greek Polytonic in Linux
For up to date instructions for Greek and Greek Polytonic see How to type Greek, Greek Polytonic in Linux.
The following text is kept for historical purposes. Greek and Greek Polytonic now works in Linux, using the default Greek layout.
General Update: If you have Ubuntu 8.10, Fedora 10 or a similarly new distribution, then Greek Polytonic works out-of-the-box. Simply select the Greek Polytonic layout. For more information, see the recent Greek Polytonic post.
Update 3rd May 2008: If you have Ubuntu 8.04 (probably applies to other recent Linux distributions as well), you simply need to add GTK_IM_MODULE=xim to /etc/environment. Start a Terminal (Applications/Accessories/Terminal) and type the commands (the first command makes a backup copy of the configuration file, and the second opens the configuration file with administrative priviliges, so that you can edit and save):
$ gksudo cp /etc/environment /etc/environment.ORIGINAL
$ gksudo gedit /etc/environment
then append
GTK_IM_MODULE=xim
save, and restart your computer. It should work now. Try to test with the standard Text editor, found in Accessories.
In Ubuntu 8.10 (autumn 2008), it should work out of the box, just by enabling the Greek Polytonic layout.
Update 20th June 2008: If still some accents/breathings/aspirations do not work, then this is probably related to your system locale (whether it is Greek or not). It works better when it is Greek. If you are affected and you do not use the Greek locale, there is one more thing to do.
$ gksudo cp /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose.ORIGINAL
$ gksudo cp /usr/share/X11/locale/el_GR.UTF-8/Compose /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose
The first command makes a backup copy of your original en_US Compose file (assuming you run an English locale; if in doubt, read /usr/share/X11/locale/locale.dir). The second command copies the Greek compose file over the English one. You then logout and login again.
End of updates
To write Greek Polytonic in Linux, a special file is used, which is called the compose file. There is a bit of complication here in the sense that the compose file depends on the current system locale.
To find out which compose file is active on your system, have a look at
/usr/share/X11/locale/compose.dir
Let’s assume your system locale is en_US.UTF-8 (Start Applications/Accessories/Terminal and type locale).
In the compose.dir file it says
en_US.UTF-8/Compose: en_US.UTF-8
Note that the locale is the second field. If you have a different system locale, match on the second field. Many people make a mistake here. Actually, I think be faster for the system to locate the entry if the compose.dir file was sorted by locale.
Therefore, the compose file is
/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose
So, what’s the problem then?
Well, for the Greek locale (el_GR.UTF-8) we have a different compose file, a compose file in which Greek Polytonic actually works 
.
Therefore, there are numerous workarounds here to get Greek Polytonic working.
For example,
- If you speak modern Greek, you can install the Greek locale.
- You can edit /usr/share/X11/locale/compose.dir so that for your locale, the compose file is the Greek one, /usr/share/X11/locale/el_GR.UTF-8/Compose.
- You can edit the Greek compose file, take the Greek Polytonic section and update the Greek Polytonic section of en_US.UTF-8/Compose.
- You can copy the Greek compose file in your home directory under the name .XCompose. I did not try this one, and also you may be affected by this bug. (not tested)
Of course the proper solution is to update en_US.UTF-8/Compose with the updated Greek Polytonic compose sequences. There is a tendency to add the compose sequences of all languages to en_US.UTF-8/Compose, and this actually is happening now. In this respect, it would make sense to rename en_US.UTF-8/Compose into something like general/Compose.
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