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.

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Why would you want to buy a laptop without pre-installed Windows?

1. Because you are simply not going to use Windows (for example, you plan to use a Linux distribution)
2. Because your school has an Developer Academic Alliance (formerly MSDN AA) with Microsoft and they provide the Windows software for you
3. Because your organisation has a company-wide agreement for Microsoft software, and you do not wish to pay twice for Windows.
4. Because you somehow have a Windows license or Windows package installation box already.

Sadly, when talking to the sales personnel of a manufacturer, it might look an easier strategy to just mention points 2 or 3. There is already some prior knowledge with the sales personnel that large organisations do not need the pre-installed Windows software.

Dell used to sell the N Series laptops with Ubuntu Linux, however they do not sell them anymore, at least in Europe. I contacted a Dell customer care manager on this issue and I was told that N Series laptops are available when you call Dell Sales by phone. I did just that, however the telephone salesperson explained that they do not have N Series laptops anymore. He verified with his own manager.

Dell does sell netbooks with Ubuntu Linux in Europe. For example, the Dell Mini or the Dell Latitude 2100. The situation with the netbooks is almost perfect, but…

What would be desirable is to provide the option, when you customize the Latitude 2100, to be able to select the operating system under the Operating System options. In this way, the customer is in a position to make a better decision between the differences of the two options.

In a regional Dell website, it is possible to select the operating system while you are customizing the computer. In this case, when you select Ubuntu Linux, you can easily see that you are saving €30 compared to the initial price.

It is not clear why Dell UK and Dell Germany do not provide the facility that we see with Dell Greece. Normally the localised editions of a website take any changes later than the main languages (English, German).

Updated (soon after posted): It is possible to get the Dell UK page for the Latitude 2100 so that both pre-installed Windows and Ubuntu appear in the same section. It might be an update that has been rolled out just recently. When you visit the Customise page,  you can now see that by selecting pre-installed Ubuntu Linux, you save £24 compared to pre-installed XP.

What would be ideal is for the consumer to have the option to avoid the pre-installed Windows, in a way shown above at the Dell Greece website for the Latitude 2100. Having options for Ubuntu Linux or FreeDOS (for those who already have a Windows license) would be the best value for the customers. This would make Dell the best company around.

So, what’s going on with the other laptop manufacturers?

Acer, Asus, Compaq and HP do not appear to sell computers without pre-installed Windows to the European market. I have not been able to locate retailers that would sell a laptop with FreeDOS, let alone a Linux distribution.

Is this the case with Acer, Asus, Compaq and HP in other markets?

This is an example of laptop models from the SE Asian market. The laptops come with FreeDOS and if you want pre-installed Windows, you pay extra (€53 or $74). The quoted price for the laptop is not subjected to local tax for the specific SE Asian country. Here is the price equivalent for each laptop,

Acer: €325 or $460

Asus: €525 or $745

Compaq: €365 or $515

Manufacturers such as Lenovo and Toshiba appear as black sheep to me, regarding the European market. Lenovo is supposed to sell laptops with SuSE Linux, however I could not find an example. Toshiba is completely out of the radar. They might not be a big laptop manufacturer.

What would be great for the European customer is to have the option to buy a product without pre-installed Windows. And this option of buying a computer without pre-installed Windows should be a visible and accessible option.

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I am attending GUADEC this year, thanks to the sponsorship by the GNOME Foundation!

I am organising the GNOME Localisation BoF, which takes place on Friday, 10th July, 2009, at 17:00. I am also having a session on the GNOME translator command line tool gnome-i18n-manage-vcs on the same day at 15:00.

gsoc

A few months ago, there was a program in Greece, along the lines of the Google Summer of Code, to help Greek developers in FLOSS projects. The program was organised by EELLAK, a Greek non-profit, composed of 25 institutions of the tertiary education and research centres. As it took place during the spring, it was nicknamed Greek Spring of Code (gsoc).

Apart from developing software, the program had a localisation angle, and we applied for the localisation of GNOME 2.26 to the Greek language. In practice, this meant that we had to lift the documentation translations from 32% to 100%, complete the remaining UI translations.

We achieved the goal .

Many contributors helped in this effort; Jennie Petoumenou (also co-organiser in the effort), Marios Zindilis, Fotis Tsamis, Kostas Papadimas, Nikos Charonitakis, Sterios Prosiniklis, Giannis Katsampiris, Michalis Kotsarinis, Vasilis Kontogiannis and Socratis Vavilis.The overall task was difficult, and our team did an amazing task to complete the translations on time. Thank you all, and especially Jennie and Marios for undertaking huge chunks of the translation effort for this release.

Here are the GNOME EL 2.26 deliverables in HTML, PDF.

ellak-conf

The fourth Greek FOSS (ELLAK) conference took place in Athens on the 19-20th June 2009.

We had our annual localisation meetup!

I organised a workshop on git, with a focus on how to use when starting into software development. There was emphasis on using github.com to host and manage the development. In addition, services such as github.com allow to cooperate during the development, making programming a more social and interesting task.

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In detail, the Credit Note says

Item No.  Description                    Quantity Unit Price  Net  VAT
          Cust Invd b4 parts recd 3rdpty    -1      26.96   -26.96  S

                                                                 GBP
  VAT Summary                                      Subtotal   -26.96
                                                   Freight      0.00
   VAT    VAT Rate      GBP        GBP             VAT £       -4.04               
   Type     %       Total Net £   VAT £                
    S      15         -26.96      -4.04           
                                                   Total      -31.00

Now, that was the short story for getting my Windows refund. The long story was that I had to go through several weeks of effort to figure out how to get a new computer without Microsoft software. I contacted by phone both Dell and Microsoft and I estimate I was on the phone for about four hours in total. To save you the effort, here are some tips,

1. You will get stonewalled. I did not get any reliable information on how to buy a computer without Microsoft software while I was researching my options. I actually gave up and proceeded with buying a computer with Windows, considering that my last resort was to use the EULA method as soon as I got it delivered (I would not accept the EULA, thus I would be entitled for a refund or credit).
2. Apart from phone calls, I spent some time on Dell Chat. In one case, I was told that I can get a computer from the Latitude range with FreeDOS. They would have to get the precise configuration of the computer so that they can give me a quote. We made sure that the configuration was correct (the one in my basket with the one I would get the quote for). It sounded very promising, however, at the end the computer with FreeDOS would be about £30 more expensive than Vista. I asked for clarification on this issue but I did not get any.
3. You will be often told that you are the first person that asks for a computer without Microsoft software. Try to think that you are a pioneer and don’t feel let down.
4. When calling by phone, avoid using premium telephone numbers. Get a good SIP account and configure Ekiga or SFLPhone (has recording feature). For Dell UK, try 01344 373727 which apparently is fine even if you are not a Public sector customer.

By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software. Instead, contact the manufacturer or installer to determine their return policy for a refund or credit.. (why are there two dots? — simos)

When you first boot a new computer that has Windows pre-installed, you are presented with the above screen. Why would Microsoft give the option to reject their software? I believe the reason is that they want to enter into a contract directly with the customer, thus there is no issue with removing this facility in future versions of Windows (probably for similar reasons, Hotmail now supports POP3, apparently so that small mobile devices can retrieve e-mail. You can now migrate from Hotmail to GMail easily.). However, the whole environment is setup in such a way that virtually noone would be able to pursue a successful refund. One has to scroll the tiny text box in order to find the pictured paragraph (no option to print!). Even the Microsoft Customer Care EMEA are not aware of the option not to accept the EULA.

In your case, if you do not intend to use the pre-installed Microsoft software (apparently includes the case where you already have a license, such as an Academic License), you have the option to reject for a refund or credit. Simply press the Shutdown button and do not accept the license. Then, get on the phone.

I installed Ubuntu 9.04 (x86_64) and the computer runs fine .

It was unexpected when Intel got a heavy fine from the EU for anticompetitive practices. Does this practice by Microsoft (making it extremely difficult to obtain a refund or credit) constitute an anticompetitive practice?

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A couple of weeks ago, a new member at the Ubuntu-gr forum posted a question about a sound problem in an Ubuntu Linux installation.

Alsa Mixer

Here is the timeline

1. An initial post was made with the relevant hardware information.
2. More information was gathered that led to the PCI ID and subsystem ID of the sound card, which further led to the source of a patch for a quirk.
3. The advice to recompile the full kernel (with the patch) was given. This process required over 10GB, which caused the distribution to crash. The user was fine to reinstall.
4. A subsequent route was taken to simply compile Alsa (not the full kernel) and add the patch.
5. This route was successful and the sound was now working.
6. We want to post this patch upstream so that newer versions of the kernel contain the fix. In addition, all distributions will benefit as well.
7. A bug report was submitted to the Alsa bugtracking #0004561. We now wait.
8. Days are passing with no progress. A question at #alsa (Freenode) shows that the Alsa bugtracking is probably not used, so there is need to contact the developers through the mailing list.
9. An e-mail is sent to the Alsa mailing list with the patch. The Alsa developer takes the patch and applies to his tree. We missed by several days the release of Linux 2.6.30; the patch should appear in 2.6.31.

The whole process took ten days. It is amazing how rewarding it is to follow the open-source processes and contribute the personal time to help make open-source better.

The patch was evidently elemental, however it required new testing to make sure it works, and that it applies to the current state of Alsa. There are many areas that you can contribute some of your time to make open-source better.

I would like to thank Theodora for going through the process, locating and verifying the patch, so that now it is pending inclusion in Linux 2.6.31.

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Depicting a shell is not an easy task; in the screenshot above we only show the default prompt. It has the following disadvantages,

1. It does not differentiate visually between the username and hostname.
2. It shows the relative path only, making it difficult to realize quickly the full path for the current working directory.
3. Cannot copy the path using the mouse by double-clicking on it. The ~ is not included in the highlighted text, that one needs to paste and add the remaining part of the path (such as /home/user/)
4. The point of input changes position on the command line, depending on the size of the path. As you cd into directories, the point of input moves further to the right.

This is the prompt with the bashrc project configuration files. It solves the problems described with the default configuration files found in Linux distributions.

Obviously, there are more to the shell’s configuration files than a usable prompt. For example,

• the ability to show the partial matches when you press Tab for the first time
• enabling the shopt options to reasonable values
• have reasonable aliases for . .. … / -
• adding –verbose, –interactive to basic utilities such as cp, mv, rm
• show the exit value of an application if it is other than 0 ($?)

There is a EnhancedBash project for the Ubuntu Linux distribution which might be able to break apart and provide better default configuration files.

If you want to help and add more to the proposed configuration, visit http://github.com/simos/bashrc/

To use the bashrc shell, you need to

1. Download the latest package from http://github.com/simos/bashrc/ (note the Download button).
2. Extract the package, open a terminal window and enter the newly created directory.
3. Run make install
4. Open a new shell window. The new settings should be activated.

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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

We attach the HTML version of the guide in this post.

You can find the latest version of this document at
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_4cqjn9zcj
This document is the translation from Greek of

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_3gx3bq5f9

Updates
2009-05-11: Fixed Polytonic instructions; AltGr+] is for ypogegrammeni (instead of the wrong AltGr+}). (Thanks Christos Nouskas)
2009-05-11: Fixed Polytonic instructions; Psili and Daseia require AltGr+: and AltGr+” respectively (not vice versa). (Thanks Christos Nouskas)

Writing Greek, Greek Polytonic (Ancient Greek) on Linux (X.Org 1.6+)

1. Writing Greek, Greek Polytonic (Ancient Greek) on Linux (X.Org 1.6+)
   1. Summary
   2. Adding the Greek layout
   3. New basic Greek layout
   4. Available Greek Polytonic fonts
   5. Technical information
   6. Contact
   7. Thanks

Summary

In Linux distributions that first appear from spring 2009, it is possible to write Greek and Greek Polytonic (Ancient Greek) simply by adding the Greek keyboard layout. In this document we show in detail how to add the Greek keyboard layout and how to write in Greek. In previous versions of distributions, one had to enable a specialised Greek Polytonic layout, which was awkward to use.

Adding the Greek layout

We show how to add the Greek keyboard layout in GNOME. Instructions for KDE, XFCE and other environments are very much welcome.

1. Right-Click on the panel and select Add to Panel…

2. From the list of applets, select Keyboard Indicator and click on Add. Then, click on Close.

3. On my system, the default layout GBr (Great Britain) is shown. In your case you might see US, or something similar (such as Fr, Es or De).

4. Right-click on the layout name (on GBr in my case) so that you get the Keyboard Preferences option, and open it.

5. These are the default settings when you install your distribution. In my case, the default is Great Britain. Notice the + button. This button allows to add additional layouts. Click on +.

6. Select Greece for both Country and Variant. This is the new default layout that includes support for Greek, Greek Polytonic and Ancient Greek characters. Finally, click on Add.

7. The new layout is enabled. We did not finish yet; we need to configure the keyboard shortcut to switch between our native layout and Greek. The default keyboard shortcut is Alt+AltGr, which many users may not find convenient. In addition, it may not even work in some cases due to a bug in the X.Org. We click on Other Options… in order to configure the keyboard shortcut.

8. Under the heading Layout switching, locate and enable the option Alt+Shift change layout. Untick any other option. I think that Alt+Shift is one of the most common shortcuts for switching layouts. (My personal preference however is Both Shift keys together change layout). Then, click on Close.

9. Notice the two layouts. In the Type to test settings you can test both Greek and your original layout. Use the shortcut to switch between layouts. You can also switch by simply clicking on the Keyboard Indicator applet. Finally click on Close.

New basic Greek layout

The following table shows how to write modern Greek. The subsequent table shows how to write additional characters for Greek Polytonic.

Result	Key combination	Works for…
Tonos/Acute ΄	Dead key (;) + vowel	All vowels: ά έ ή ί ύ ό ώ
Dialytika ¨	Dead key (:) + vowel	These vowels: ϊ ϋ
Dialytika with Tonos	Dead key (;) + Dead key (:) + vowel	These vowels: ΐ ΰ
Dialytika with Tonos	Dead key (:) + Dead key (;) + vowel	These vowels ΐ ΰ
Ano Teleia ·	AltGr + (>)
Greek brackets « »	Key produces «         Key | produces »
Greek brackets « »	AltGr + , produces «    AltGr + . produces »

Table 1 How to type modern Greek

Result	Key combination	Works for…
Περισπωμένη ῀	AltGr + Dead key ([) + vowel	ᾶ ῆ ῖ ῦ ῶ
Υπογεγραμμένη ͺ	AltGr + Dead key (]) + vowel	ᾳ ῃ ῳ
Ψιλή ᾿	AltGr+ Dead key (:) + vowel or the letter ρ	ἀ ἐ ἠ ἰ ὐ ὀ ὠ ῤ
Δασεία ῾	AltGr+ Dead key (“) + vowel or the letter ρ	ἁ ἑ ἡ ἱ ὑ ὁ ὡ ῥ
Βαρεία `	AltGr+ Dead key (‘) + vowel	ὰ ὲ ὴ ὶ ὺ ὸ ὼ
Μακρόν ¯	AltGr+ Dead key ({) + vowel	ᾱ ῑ ῡ
Βραχύ ˘	AltGr+ Dead key (}) + vowel	ᾰ ῐ ῠ

Table 2 How to type Greek Polytonic

Note: You can stack together multiple dead keys in order to produce any allowed combination (such as ᾧ).

Αποτέλεσμα	Συνδυασμός πλήκτρων	Αποτέλεσμα
Sampi Ϡ ϡ	AltGr + Ππ                (pP)	ϡ Ϡ
Koppa Ϟ ϟ	AltGr + Κκ                (kK)	ϟ Ϟ
Digamma Ϝϝ	AltGr + Γγ                 (gG)	ϝ Ϝ
Stigma Ϛ ϛ	AltGr + ςΣ                 (wW)	ϛ Ϛ
Theta ϑ ϴ	AltGr + θΘ                (uU)	ϑ ϴ
Yot ϳ	AltGr + ι                    (i)	ϳ
Numeral sign ʹ	AltGr + ν                   (n)	ʹ
Lower numeral sign ͵	AltGr + Ν                 (N)	͵

Table 3 How to type other Ancient characters

Available Greek Polytonic fonts

Most Linux distributions come with Greek Polytonic fonts which allows to start working as soon as you enable the Greek keyboard layout. If you wish to add additional Greek Polytonic fonts, please select a Unicode font.

There is an issue with OpenType fonts and OpenOffice.org. If you encounter a problem, it is recommended to use the default fonts of your distribution (such as DejaVu, shipped by default in Ubuntu Linux; works great with OpenOffice.org).

If you would like to explore additional polytonic fonts, we suggest to try the fonts produced by the Greek Font Society. Your distribution probably has those fonts in the repositories, thus you simply need to open your package manager and install. For Ubuntu, the packages are

• ttf-gfs-artemisia – Greek font (Times Greek-like)
• ttf-gfs-baskerville – Ancient Greek font revival
• ttf-gfs-bodoni-classic – Smart Greek typeface revival
• ttf-gfs-complutum – ancient Greek font revival from the University of Alcalá, Spain
• ttf-gfs-didot-classic – Greek font family (Classic Didot revival)
• ttf-gfs-gazis – ancient Greek font (Byzantine cursive hand style)
• ttf-gfs-neohellenic – new Greek font family with matching Latin
• ttf-gfs-solomos – ancient Greek oblique font
• ttf-gfs-theokritos – decorative Greek font

The default font in Fedora, Liberation, does not include Greek Polytonic support. If you would like to help, please see the following bug report https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=473842

Technical information

The current Greek keyboard layout is located at

http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=xkeyboard-config.git;a=blob;f=symbols/gr

This is the upstream location of the layout.

The Greek layout file in your Linux installation is at /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gr

Contact

The author of this document is Simos Xenitellis <simos.lists@googlemail.com>.
See blog posts on Greek Polytonic at
http://simos.info/blog/archives/category/i18n/polytonic

Thanks

I would like to thank the following contributors for their work on the Greek keyboard layout (since the first version) Βασίλης Βασαΐτης, Αλέξανδρος Διαμαντίδης, and Κωνσταντίνος Πιστιόλης. If your name is not listed, feel free to contact me.

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http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dccdrjqk_3gx3bq5f9

Είναι διαθέσιμος ο οδηγός για γράψιμο ελληνικών (και πολυτονικού) σε μορφή PDF.

Είναι διαθέσιμος ο οδηγός για γράψιμο ελληνικών (και πολυτονικού) σε μορφή ODT.

Ο οδηγός περιγράφει τη δυνατότητα γραφής μονοτονικού, πολυτονικού και αρχαίων ελληνικών χαρακτήρων. Ο οδηγός αυτός διορθώνει μια σειρά από αβλεψίες στις οδηγίες.

Ο οδηγός ισχύει για τις διανομές Fedora 11 (ή νεώτερες), Ubuntu Linux 9.04 (ή νεώτερες) και άλλες διανομές που θα βγουν την Άνοιξη του 2009. Για προηγούμενες διανομές, δείτε τις οδηγίες (και τον αντίστοιχο παλαιότερο οδηγό) από το παρόν ιστολόγιο για το πως μπορείτε να προσθέσετε την νέα ελληνική διάταξη πληκτρολογίου.

Κάθε σχόλιο για βελτίωση του οδηγού είναι ευπρόσδεκτο.

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Δείτε την παρουσίαση του φόρουμ του Ubuntu-gr που έκανε ο goofy στο συνέδριο FOSSCOMM που έγινε στη Λάρισα.

Δείτε την ανακοίνωση γενεθλίων στο www.ubuntu-gr.org.

Μερικά στατιστικά στοιχεία κατά τη συμπλήρωση του ενός χρόνου λειτουργίας του φόρουμ,

• τα περισσότερα από 2700 μέλη και τους πιθανότατα χιλιάδες επισκέπτες
• τις περισσότερες από 45.000 δημοσιεύσεις σε σχεδόν 4.500 συζητήσεις (θέματα / νήματα)
• τους περισσότερους από 150 Οδηγούς (How to – Tutorials)
• τα περισσότερα από 37.000 hits στο 3ο τεύχος του περιοδικού μας Ubuntistas (εξαιρουμένων λεκτικών Google, bot, κλπ)
• την έντονη δραστηριότητα-συμμετοχή σε δικτυακό τόπο Ubuntu-GR / λίστα συνδρομητών / Κανάλι IRC #ubuntu-gr στο δίκτυο FreeNode.

Γραφτείτε στο φόρουμ ubuntu-gr και μάθετε περισσότερα για το ελεύθερο λογισμικό στην ελληνική γλώσσα!

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Here is the workaround. The basic info comes from this google earth forum post and the reply that suggests to mess with the QT libraries.

Google Earth 5 is based on the Qt library, and Google is using their own copies of the Qt libraries. This means that the customisation (including fonts) that you do with qtconfig-qt4 does not affect Google Earth. Here we use Ubuntu 8.10, and we simply installed the Qt libraries in order to use some Qt programs. You probably do not have qtconfig-qt4 installed, so you need to get it.

So, by following the advice in the post above and replacing key Qt libraries from Google Earth with the ones provided by our distro, solves (read: workaround) the problem. Here comes the science:

If you have a 32-bit version of Ubuntu,

cd /opt/google-earth/
sudo mv libQtCore.so.4 libQtCore.so.4.bak
sudo mv libQtGui.so.4 libQtGui.so.4.bak
sudo mv libQtNetwork.so.4 libQtNetwork.so.4.bak
sudo mv libQtWebKit.so.4 libQtWebKit.so.4.bak
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4.4.3  libQtCore.so.4
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4.4.3  libQtGui.so.4
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libQtNetwork.so.4.4.3  libQtNetwork.so.4
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libQtWebKit.so.4.4.3  libQtWebKit.so.4

If you have the 64-bit version of Ubuntu, try

cd /opt/google-earth/

sudo getlibs googleearth-bin
sudo mv libQtCore.so.4 libQtCore.so.4.bak
sudo mv libQtGui.so.4 libQtGui.so.4.bak
sudo mv libQtNetwork.so.4 libQtNetwork.so.4.bak
sudo mv libQtWebKit.so.4 libQtWebKit.so.4.bak
sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libQtCore.so.4.4.3  libQtCore.so.4
sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libQtGui.so.4.4.3  libQtGui.so.4
sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libQtNetwork.so.4.4.3  libQtNetwork.so.4
sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libQtWebKit.so.4.4.3  libQtWebKit.so.4

Requires to have getlibs installed, and when prompted, install the 32-bit versions of the packages as instructed.

Now, with qtconfig-qt you can configure the font settings.

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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.

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It was discovered during a discussion at the Ubuntu-GR mailing list and reported in June 2008, and at that time it would cause Firefox to crash. Therefore, it was deemed as a security issue, and the bug report was not made public. Just recently, the issue was revisited, current versions of Firefox do not crash, and the security tag was removed. It is quite possible that there is some existing report on the issue, and not being classified as a security bug, it will be easier sort out. Thus, have a look at bug report #441307.

The source of the rendering bug is the HTML code

<HR WIDTH=143165425 ALIGN=RIGHT>

So, you send an HTML e-mail and you add the above code. The code says to show a Horizontal line, with some huge width (here, you simply put 143165425).

If you received such an annoying e-mail, here is how it may look like (Yahoo WebMail)

How GMail might look like when you receive such an HTML email.

Some versions of Firefox respond differently to this rendering bug, which probably relates to a different set of linked libraries. For example, the Firefox 3 found in Ubuntu Linux 8.10 is able to show the e-mail in GMail just fine (though it messes up with other pages). The above screenshots are by Minefield 3.1b2pre (64-bit). The Windows version of Firefox is also affected.

To try out yourself, create a file /tmp/mypoc.html with contents

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN”>
<HTML>
<HEAD>
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR=”#ffffff”>
<TABLE WIDTH=100% BORDER=0 CELLPADDING=2 CELLSPACING=2 BGCOLOR=”#e0e0e0″>
<TR>
<TD>
<HR WIDTH=143165425 ALIGN=RIGHT>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
This is a test.
<HR WIDTH=143165425 ALIGN=RIGHT>
Some more text.
</BODY>
</HTML>

Load it up in Firefox. Click to Select All, then Copy. You can then paste in your mailer, when you compose as HTML (for example, with Thunderbird).

Just to reiterate, this issue is currently at level annoyance, unless someone manages to produce an HTML file that can crash Firefox. If you manage to do so, please file a bug report at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ and specify the security settting so that the bug gets high priority.

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