How to type Greek, Greek Polytonic in Linux
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
We attach the HTML version of the guide in this post.
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+)
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.
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 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.
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).
