Tiny Core Linux
General TC => General TC Talk => Topic started by: byteshaman on September 02, 2013, 03:23:34 PM
-
Hello world,
It is my hopes that this post gets clearance from the audience that has more familiarity with linux and tiny core. I must say that I have done my youtube research, I have read all of the core concepts, I have looked through the wiki. It is unfortunate that I am limited in comprehension, and time. With help, we can remedy this. I have dedicated several hours over several weeks and i intend to keep doing such. but as a human on earth i only have 24 hours a day and many of those require sleeping and eating.
I am imagining this thread will keep my questions into one thread if all goes well. I will begin with my first question : how do I add CJK locales into tiny core? I mean foreign language program fonts and support? is this possible? I have followed some guides - of each I hit a roadblock of some sort. I will post links to the guides that didnt work if need be. If there is an easy routine process, then my ineffective research references should not be necessary.
My intent with tinycore is to learn linux. and my method will be an attempt to create something similar to puppy arcade linux. essentially a portable, bootable usb stick os with persistence that I can take with me and use on whatever hardware allows.
What I have done : I have learned alot of windows. I have installed coreplus onto virtualbox, and used virtualbox to install to my usb. The usb install keeps files, keeps extensions.
My forte is web programming, not much on linux. I have got a book, the no starch press linux cookbook, but i have come to find that its commands dont all work with tiny core.
I have messed with lubuntu, slitaz, damn small linux, and a few other distros. i really like the idea of ground up. in 2003 i built my first computer and spent about 3 weeks trying to get slackware working. honestly, I DID have it up and working, there was a hardware conflict that just destroyed my efforts. I was unable to diagnose it as a n00b and had bought windows xp before final diagnosis that I needed to take my machine to the computer scientist guy. i have not revisited linux since, until about a month ago.
would it be possible to get all the game emulators loaded and working like puppy arcade linux? since the site scottjarvis is down - my puppy arcade linux distro will not work or configure. and i really dont care for a turnkey solution - i want to learn howto. i also want to get WINE on it, so that I can use additional games. I also want to get CJK for even more game compatibility.
My first intent - is to just get various locales into tiny core. I have done a forum search - and each post got into technicalities which required my questions as a response. might as well do that here if need came about. How do I CJK tiny core? Is there a routine process, or should i do another attempt, and post my failed routine here for evaluation and modification? thanks for reading, thanks for the help.
I am using tinycore installed into virtualbox on a compaq laptop. it has a synaptics ps/2 touchpad. click and dragging of tinycore desktop windows works in virtualbox, but does not work when i boot directly to my tinycore os, btw. so much to do, so much to do...
-
The forum has many categories.
Post your questions in the correct catagories, not all in one thread.
-
Hi byteshaman,
I wrote an article some time ago for having a portable Linux on a USB stick, and some followup too, about locales and UTF-8. I don't know if this will help with CJK, though… My web site: http://yeti.selfip.net/ Look for:
- Bootable flash drive for both Linux and Windows: part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
- Time zone in TinyCore Linux
- UTF-8 everywhere in TinyCore Linux
-
G_C : I will use my time and efforts to explore and hopefully find answers. I will not post everything in one thread. I will also try to refrain from cluttering up the forum with foolish attempts.
YY : thank you for the information. i am following the directions now.
if anyone is interested - my website is http://byteshaman.us
i havent updated in a while and probably wont anytime soon due to my efforts being directed elsewhere (getting off of the windows environment).
-
well, i want to get used to using the terminal. I am not in the direction of success there.
YY article "It is quite easy: you install the getlocale extension"
I know how to use the app browser to install apps, but i am trying to build my terminal command reference.
http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:install_apps
:~$ tce-load -i getlocale
getlocale.tcz not found!
well, then i suppose i'll use the app browser to install it....I have it installed.
next i am to use it to generate a custom "mylocale" extension. I do not know how to generate a custom extension. I am faced with the task of doing the research to generate a custom extension, I have come across a web page about tcztools.
Here I feel as if I am going down a different rabbit hole that is not a part of my original intention. If I proceed further, I am under the impression I will find myself struggling with something I do not know how to do - while also not sure if this is the correct solution. (two problems instead of one)
This looks like an advanced technique, and i do not understand the technical language of linux yet. My technical gibberish is php/mysql/javascript.
I appreciate your direction YY, but your instructions on
http://yeti.selfip.net/cms/index.php/post/2013/06/21/UTF-8-everywhere-in-TinyCore-Linux
is for advanced comprehension. I'm very sorry, my current comprehension level is low. It is my intent to raise my comprehension levels, but I must choose direction and struggle wisely - with help. You all should have seen me getting the Dada engine working on damn small linux. I began with no prior knowledge of linux since that 2003 effort. i got it working but it was probably 300% more difficult for me than it should have been.
I need a comprehensive explanation of the advanced context clues before proceeding forward with that particular article. I will now research the getlocale extension and how it is applied.
Thank you for your help.
-
If you want to download and install extensions using tce-load, you need to include the -w option.
Without '-w' tce-load installs previously downloaded extensions only.
Run 'tce-load' to see the options.
-
i type
:~$locale --all-locales
C
POSIX
and i am under the assumption i should see something referencing languages.
a google search says i should just install japanese fonts into the /usr/share/fonts/ folder?
i did read more of the UTF-8 everywhere page, and decided to install the xfonts-unifont extension.
i downloaded firefox to test if japanese fonts will show. nope.
I downloaded mikachan font http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/mikachan/
and put it into the /usr/share/fonts folder. viola. i see japanese fonts are now working.
Thank you for the tip G_C. I will do it right from now on.
-
I downloaded mikachan font http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/mikachan/
and put it into the /usr/share/fonts folder. viola. i see japanese fonts are now working.
~/.fonts could work as well.
-
Hey Byteshaman!
Indeed my articles are rather geared toward people with knowledge in Linux, and even TinyCore. But don’t hesitate to ask for help: these forums are there for this purpose :)
As a general advice, I suggest you read the TC Wiki pages concerning the topics you address. Besides, with Linux, it is common usage to read documentation for commands using the “man” command. Sometimes, there is no manual page; in this case, you can use the command --help or -h, which is the equivalent of Windows’ “/?” switch.
As gerald_clark said, you have to use tce -w for downloading a package. As for generating a custom "mylocale" extension, that is the _purpose_ of “getlocale” ;) I don’t remember the exact command, but if I remember correctly, the description for “getlocale” in the package browser gives the exact directions.
Good luck, and don’t hesitate to ask: we’re here to help you get started with Linux, and with TinyCore :)
tYY.
-
I understand I now have japanese fonts displaying. is this equivalent to japanese locale support?
I did find this : https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Locale
but i think its a different distro so i can only use the info with limited application.
I was typing
:~$ getlocale
which you are all probably aware didnt do anything.
I typed in
:~$ getlocale()
and the prompt turned into
>
I dont know what that means or what to do. i typed in
>q
to get back to regular command prompt....
ok. my simple comprehension level probably needs more simple objectives and questions.
question :
if I type in
:~$ locale -a
the response is
C
POSIX
If japanese locale support was available, I am under the assumption I should see something like
C
POSIX
jp_JP
is that correct? I am possibly assuming wrong. I am possibly making this more difficult than it is.
I did a search for "locale" in the tc wiki, I came across this page :
http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:grub2_from_grub1?s[]=locale#locale_settings
the directory /usr/local/share/locale does not exist, but
/usr/local/share/getlocale does exist
I looked in this directory and found the file : SUPPORTED
I opened it in nano editor and i see a big list. what is this list i am looking at and how can i use it? I am assuming it is relevant. I am posting this question here. from here i will proceed to use the super duper information superhighway to get lost in a bunch of stuff i probably wont understand.
I have installed the wine extension. I am going to attempt to play a japanese game in WINE. this is all in virtualbox by the way.
wondering why i would intall WINE in virtualbox? VB is a test environment. when i get things working in virtualbox, i will use the tech to update my TC OS that is on a bootable drive. I hope to eventually move over to linux, whatever distro, completely over time.
thanks for reading. thanks for any help.
-
Hi byteshaman,
To tell the truth, my difficulty here is that I'm stuck on Windows right now :( so I cannot check and I rely only on my memory…)
Arch's Wiki is very good, but it is indeed different from TinyCore in this matter.
For Japanese support, you'll have to address these things:
- Japanese fonts (already done if I read you correctly),
- UTF-8 (that's a part I can help with),
- Kanji / katakana / hiragana characters input for X11 (the windowing system in Linux)
According to http://tinycorelinux.net/4.x/x86/tcz/getlocale.tcz.info the script is called getlocale.sh. So you should just open a terminal, and launch "getlocale.sh". This should ask you what locales you want to have. Be sure to select the ones you want (jp_JP.utf8 I guess), and I suggest you also pick an English locale as a backup. This process will create the mylocate.tcz extension, which will give you the requested locales, if enabled on boot.
And your assumption is correct as to what "locale -a" should then return :)
-
according to David attenborough on living planet - the hardest part for any animal that in the process of taking flight - is getting off the ground.
took me a while to realize i could select more than one language in the menu after
:~$getlocale.sh
by clicking on the list with my mouse pointer.
I rebooted, and nothing changed. I did, what i think was - the routine all over again -
and getlocale -a does show the japanese language support.
cheers! thank you YY!
this is proving to be insanely difficult for me.
my two problems now.
1. whe i reboot - the /usr/share/fonts folder is not persistent. or at least it doesnt appear to be persistent.
the mikachan-P.ttf does not show when i
:~$ ls
yet when i copy it over to /usr/share/fonts - it asked me if i wanted to overwrite it....
i will diagnose that later.
when i did a :
:~$ wine mugenjapanesegame.exe
my cpu usage went to 100% and all sorts of errors popped up. I am aware that if i have questions with WINE I should post a question in the appropriate category.
well. honestly I have made progress yesterday and today - however minor. i have other priorities like eating and sleeping which must be tend to. so i thank YY for your help once again.
i will continue to do general linux studies and will probably be back tomorrow.
-
Congratulations byteshaman! Progress can be hard sometimes but you do well.
For your fonts, I suggest you read "Getting tinycore to save your documents and settings" on this page:
http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:persistence_for_dummies
Also, you should know that ~/.fonts/ (that is: /home/tc/.fonts/) is also a perfectly good place to put fonts, maybe even a better place since directories under /usr are usually left to be managed by the distribution's package manager (although TC is a bit special in this regard).
As for Wine, I'm afraid I won't be able to give any help :( It depends on the software to run, and sometimes even depends on the hardware: remember, Wine Is NOT an Emulator ;) but instead it is a compatibility layer for Linux, implementing the Win32 API and some more. So the hardware counts too. You may have different results with a real PC and VirtualBox…
I realized I forgot to talk about characters input in my previous post. Usually this is done with an accompanying program, several of which exist, but I don't know which ones work in TinyCore. For example, there are SCIM, iBus…
-
I seem to have no
/home/tc/.fonts/ folder... in fact, I am putting the mikachan-P.ttf font into the /usr/share/fonts/ folder - and its not showing them like it was previously. :-[
recap of the current status (keep in mind this is in virtualbox):
when I
:~$ locale -a
response is :
C
POSIX
en_US
en_US.iso88591
en_US.utf8
ja_JP.eucjp
ja_JP.utf8
I have downloaded the mikachanfont, untarred it, and moved it to /usr/share/fonts/mikachan-P.ttf
now, when i go to http://yahoo.jp in bon echo all I get are a bunch of ?????? where japanese glyphs are to be.
when I go to the /home/tc/mikachanfontP-8.9/README.ja file and open it in nano - I DO see japanese characters.
when I create a text file in windows, copy and paste japanese characters to it, save to usb, mount usb in virtualbox tinycore os, and open the text file - no japanese characters show.
when I tried to configure and use wine it was absolute fail. I'll deal with WINE later.
do I have the japanese locale working? I mean I see the characters in nano, from the README.ja file....but I do not see them in Bon Echo.
I'm so confused. however I have put in over 2hours today messing with it. and I'm going to be done till tomorrow or so.
Thank you for your help. I did read the article on persistence, and I will keep it in my lessons to apply from now on. Gracias amigo
-
I seem to have no
/home/tc/.fonts/ folder...
mkdir ~/.fonts
-
byteshaman, you do have the jp locales installed. But is one of these active? To check this, run this command: "locale" (without -a): this will give you the details about the active locale. As explained here:
http://yeti.selfip.net/cms/index.php/post/2013/06/21/UTF-8-everywhere-in-TinyCore-Linux
, the active locale is set (for TinyCore) by changing the bootloader options, so that your usual TinyCore entry contains a line like this (depending on which bootloader you use):
linux /path/to/vmlinuz […] lang=ja_JP.utf8
or this:
append […] lang=ja_JP.utf8
And as tinypoodle said, create the .fonts directory inside your HOME, and be sure to save it between reboots using TinyCore's persistence mechanism, and put your fonts inside.
-
i need to do more experimenting and application - seeing as to how it did work....then it didnt work...
at some point in there...a few times, i think i accidently corrupted my install and had to start from the beginning.
well, my wrist got broken so i will have to be back after that heals.
thanks for your help. i will re-re-review all the links and keep looking into the wiki more in the meantime.
-
no urgency - as it will probably be weeks before i get back on this, but :
when i change the locale to japanese, does that mean it will only show japanese characters in all of my programs? or does it do like windows change locale,
where it still shows and processes english, until i startup a japanese game or view a japanese webpage.
does it run the english and japanese simultaneously or do i have to reboot with different boot options each time i want to do english and japanese. i suppose its really great in this case because tiny core is small and boot happens quickly
-
A user's "locale" is just a group of hints given to applications about your country, language, currency, decimal notation… preferences. The application may or may not follow the hints, depending on its support for your choice. A system-wide locale is defined and given to applications instead if you have not defined a personal choice.
In short, locales are just hints and do not change by themselves what the system is able to do.
If an application was created with only the English language in mind, then whatever the locale, it will display English.
If an application was created with only the Japanese language in mind, then whatever the locale, it will display Japanese.
All of this is 100% unrelated to character input and screen rendering.
- Input is given to applications using "events". An English-aware application can perfectly receive an event for a Japanese character (which may get displayed as garbage), and vice-versa. Rich input (not just what is shown on your keyboard) is achieved using a program such as iBus or SCIM, or to a lesser level, using the xkb "levels" and the Compose key.
- Output is done following the current locale, which must be able to interpret the characters. For example, my current locale is French, but Japanese characters are displayed correctly because my locale is fr_FR.uft8, where "utf8" is the magic part for handling any character ;) Had I used fr_FR.iso88591 instead, any Japanese character would be misunderstood and would show up as several unrelated characters. Finally, understanding characters leads to nowhere if the system finds no way to translate the character code to a "picture" on screen; that's where fonts are important: you have to install fonts for all character sets, that you may want to display, whatever your locale is.
I hope this helps. I also hope I did not write any mistake: I was never taught this; I just understood from experience… :)
-
I forgot:
By setting a couple of environment variables before launching an application, it is perfectly possible to have different applications using different locales ;)
And also: good luck with your broken wrist! I hope it will heal fast!
-
I typed in
:~$ getlocale()
and the prompt turned into
>
I don't know what that means or what to do. i typed in
>q
to get back to regular command prompt....
thanks for reading. thanks for any help.
I believe the the > at the terminal is waiting for you to complete the command
-
When you type "getlocale()" at the prompt, it must be seen by the shell as the start of the definition of a function, the name of which is "getlocale". Typing "q" on the next line tells the shell that command "q" should be run whenever the "getlocale" function is invoked. It is also possible to chain several commands by grouping them inside curly braces:
function_name() {
command1
command2
}
Well… Anyway, this was obviously not the intent of byteshaman :D In Linux, a command is launched by typing its name only, without braces.
-
yesterday i downloaded most all the wiki pages. YY deserves a nobility award for helping me understand all this. i am going to read the wiki and hopefully reach a better comprehension upon return. a also saved the utf-8 everywhere page to my references to. with the explaination given here by YY i am better able to apply understanding to the concepts contained in that page
-
well, my wrist is good enough to type again, so i might as well keep on keeping on.
I read through most of the wiki, didnt understand alot, but helped me understand more.
what i have done :
installed TC to virtualbox on windows 7
installed getlocale.tcz
used ~# getlocale.sh
to configure
ja_JP.utf8 & en_US.utf8
----------------------------------------------
i downloaded mikachanfont from this page :
http://mikachan.sourceforge.jp/linux.html
i am not sure which one to use so i downloaded 3 of them, one from each category
i have mikachan.ttf, mikachan-P.ttf, mikachan-PB.ttf, mikachan-PS.ttf
i decided to use mikachan.ttf
i moved this to /usr/share/fonts/mikachan.ttf
and i also mkdir /home/tc/.fonts - and add mikachan.ttf to that folder as well
----------------------------------------------------
then i went to what i believe is the bootloader and changed the options.
~# editor /mnt/sda1/tce/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
and added to this file : lang=ja_JP.utf8
on the APPEND line
----------------------------------------------------
when i rebooted with this configuration nothing changed when i did a ~# locale
so then i rebooted again, this time i hit f2 key on boot and added : lang=ja_JP.utf8
this seems to have had some effect, but i still cant see japanese fonts.
(http://byteshaman.us/lang.jpg)
so now i am revisiting http://yeti.selfip.net/cms/index.php/post/2013/06/21/UTF-8-everywhere-in-TinyCore-Linux
hopefully with more understanding, but i dont think i have enough yet. i am going to attempt the routine. i will probably fail. but i will post the results.
any input is very much appreciated.
-
i am stuck in understanding what/where my boot manager is.
i thought it would either be /mnt/sda1/tce/onboot.lst
but that looks like just the list of extensions to load
so then i thought it would probably be
/mnt/sda1/tce/boot/extlinux.conf
but after modifying this(adding lang=ja_JP.utf8 , and rebooting, i still get "Setting language to C" on boot TC loadup. i have this reference : http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:the_boot_process
there is alot on that page that depends on prior understanding that i do not have yet. time and application will remedy this, but i find myself using time to loop around misunderstandings without base knowledge to apply.
skipping the boot manager modification until i can find a more comprehensive reference
i believe i have japanese fonts installed. that was the next step, i do not believe for CJK i would need to install the xfonts-unifont extension?
i installed urxvt.tcz
i believe i created the symbolic link using this command :
~# ln -s /usr/local/bin/urxvt ~/.local/bin/aterm
but then at this point :
Of course, I also ensure that my ~/.local directory is saved by TinyCore across reboots, and that ~/.local/bin is in the PATH. In fact, I also create a similar symbolic link with the name xterm; it helps sometimes…
i believe you are referring back to the boot manager, and persistence
so i ~# editor /opt/.filetool.lst
...and i'm not sure how to specify subdirectories in this, so i just added the *usr* directory to this
i went to install bash via apps panel, and it just says bash.tcz failed....so i'm going to reboot to see if i broke something.
rebooted. no terminal. i think it was supposed to use urvxt - but something got fubar'd.
well. i guess that ends my efforts on this for today. tomorrow i will begin again with a fresh install.
thanks for reading. thanks for any help.
:)
-
Just noting that the builtin editor does not support advanced encodings, so you shouldn't use it to test if your fonts are working. Use a more advanced editor, or open README.ja in Firefox for example.
-
The boot loader itself can not be edited with a simple text editor.
The bootloader is usually installed in the boot sector of a hard disk (Master Boot Record = MBR) and sometimes in the first sector of a partition (Partition Boot Record = PBR). The latter also makes it possible to have several boot loaders installed on the same hard drive. There is only one MBR, but if you have more than one partition, you also have more than one PBRs where a boot loader could possibly be installed.
This actually is a configuration file of a boot loader
/mnt/sda1/tce/boot/extlinux/extlinux.confBut it doesn't seem to be used because it is located inside the tce directory (I have never seen that).
More likely the bootloaders configuration file is located in some place like
/mnt/sda1/boot/extlinux/extlinux.confor maybe
/mnt/sda1/boot/extlinux.conf
Other config files you might to look out for, in case you have anothe bootloader installed like GRUB, GRUB4DOS or GRUB2, are menu.lst or grub.cfg.
My boot loader (GRUB2) is installed into the MBR, while its config files are located in my fourth partition: sda4/boot/grub/grub.cfg
--
I don't think its such a good idea to add the hole /usr folder do the backup. It might become big depending on the amount of extensions you load (You'll find most loaded software in /usr) so that shutting down and rebooting takes very long and you get lots of dublicated data (extensions + /usr).
--
Geany is a good editor.
-
Wow, byteshaman! You're the one who should be praised, for such dedication! Most beginners would have abandonned by now. But I'm glad to be able to help you; you learn the most by trying, and I'm sorry to not have enough time to make this all a bit easier.
Well, back to business :P
Fonts (.TTF files) being in /home/tc/.fonts, edit your /opt/.filetool.lst file, and add this line inside:
home/tc/.fonts (without the starting slash)
Loading xfonts-unifont is a good idea. However in this case (Japanese), I'm not sure it will be of much help. Just be sure to put the right fonts (with glyphs for Unicode codes corresponding to characters you want to display) inside /home/tc/.fonts/.
Looking at your screenshot, you did achieve your goal, although you did so by changing the APPEND line at boot. To make it permanent, you indeed have to locate and configure your boot loader.
Assuming your bootloader is Extlinux, it should live inside a "boot" directory at the root of your boot partition. Thus, the right path to the config file should be "/mnt/sda1/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf"
Now, as both curaga and I said, you have to use applications that understand languages other than English. For the editor I suggest Geany: lightweight and featureful though not overwhelming :)
Concerning "/mnt/sda1/tce/onboot.lst", you're right: it's the list of extensions to load at boot. "mylocale.tcz" should be part of this file.
As for persistence, Assuming "home/tc" is not already in your /opt/.filetool.lst file, you'll have to add this line:
home/tc/.localto get your symbolic links saved across reboots. This has nothing to do with the boot manager ;)
Oh, and don't, ever!, put "usr" into /opt/.filetool.lst! You'll just ensure terribly long shutdown and boot times, if not a crash :D
Keep us informed. We'll help!
-
much appreciated. im working on other things now, but checked back for updates. i will apply these lessons tomorrow and just search for that bootloader sometime today.
i was able to put a smile on my face for the responses.
yin yeti said :
I'm sorry to not have enough time to make this all a bit easier.
i am very grateful for your responses. please dont be sorry for not having time. my comprehension level is very low. you and others have done perfect by just giving me a little bit of time and a little bit of solutions. i have learned to moderate the good things in life. what we currently have is good. dont give me too much of your time because you will only experience my foolishness in response. what we have now is perfect. i will work on turning my foolishness into wisdom with my own time and effort - everyone's help included.
much appreciation.
-
well, i think i figured a little more out.
i did make my /usr/share/fonts folder persistent
following the advice that i needed to find my boot folder, the correct boot folder, it made me suspicious that my virtual machine configuration was the culprit of the problem.
i also realized that virtualbox (the virtualmachine in windows 7 that is running this TC OS) - virtualbox was booting to a virtual cd-rom drive : sr0 prior to booting to virtual hard drive : sda1
so i fixed both of those. i now have ja_JP loading as lang at boot, after modifying the extlinux.conf file.
i will now proceed the attempts to show some japanese. is it possible (or even necessary) to specify more than one "lang=" locale?set the locale to both english and japanese? thats just an afterthought
-
i am installing geany. i see there is also a geany-locale.tcz, but i'm just gonna go for just geany.tcz
my first install attempt loaded a bunch of extensions, but then eventually failed.
i do see that it suggests we have vte.tcz - so i installed that
and tried geany again - and it appears to have installed correctly
so, i opened jp.txt in geany and SUCCESS!! i do see the japanese characters.
then i opened yahoo.jp in bon echo and saw a bunch of ???????? - this doesnt really matter much - as i cant even read japanese, i just want system compatibility for if/when i install some japanese games. i suppose it would help to be able to display japanese characters in the browser - but it doesnt appear mandatory at this time.
what i am doing now is downloading urxvt - which i believe is an alternative to terminal? no...it says this is a terminal emulator. well, i installed it anyway. and then i installed bash. both installs onboot mode
well, i dont see urxvt, or bash in my apps menu, or on my wbar
jp.txt is a file on my flash drive that i am using to test this. it is a simple utf8 text file that has some characters copied and pasted from a japanese web article. in windows 7 i visited a japanese webpage, selected, copied, and pasted some jp text and saved it to my flashdrive as jp.txt
i went into terminal and
~# bash
and nothing happened
~# bash /mnt/flashdrive/jp.txt
and it just gave me some garbled junk
~# urxvt
which did open the urxvt terminal but with this warning : the locale is not supported by xlib, working without locale support
when i did
~# geany /mnt/flashdrive/jp.txt
in the regular terminal it opened the file and displayed jp characters in geany, but terminal had a bunch of garbled errors
when i did
~# geany /mnt/flashdrive/jp.txt
in urxvt it opened the file and displayed jp characters in geany, but and it only had a few errors, written in english and no garbled gibberish included.
to proceed forth from here i feel i would be taking shots in the dark
i am assuming what i want to do is : set urxvt as my regular terminal - which is instructed in the "utf8 everywhere" page. i will do this tomorrow, as i have already put in a few hrs of effort today, but just on a different project (not Tinycore). i'm tired.
i suppose if i did have any questions, is just what is the difference between bash and terminal and urxvt?
should i have installed urxvt-locale instead? why dont the fonts show in the browser?
there is a possibility that my questions require answers more advanced than my level.
if so, please allow me some baby steps. :)
-
The Terminal Emulator is the text based Command Line Interface (CLI) that is used to communicate with the operatin system so you can tell it what to do (instead of using the mouse in Graphical User Interface).
In ancient days there was no mouse and GUI but the CLI is still very useful today so it is "Emulated" inside a Graphical Interface (X).
What you can do in CLI / Terminal Emulater (scripting) is, in tinycore, interpreted by busybox but you can also install bash which is more featureful and some scripts even require bash and wont run via busybox.
Which Terminal Emulator you choose to use doesnt make much difference. Some are faster, like aterm, and some have better support for non english charachters like urxvt, so that might be a good choice.
I don't know about how to display japanese characters correctly either in console nor in web browser, sorry.
-
today i am going to review the UTF8 everywhere page.
i have read more of the wiki, and still just questions.
i understand the command line interface, although i rarely used it in windows.
i think what is throwing me off is :
usually when i see/read people speak of linux terminal - they bring up the CLI and say : this is terminal
usually when i see/read people speak of bash or bash shell - they bring up the CLI and say : this is bash shell
i dont know if there's much a difference. i'm sure there is a difference. i'm sure i need more practice and research to get this definitive difference. but i guess it doesnt hurt to ask.
another wierd thing is that all of my linux references will give slightly different files/commands and reference linux distro compatibility, debian, ubuntu, red hat, and there's always a slight difference. it seems as if its a random shot when i type these commands into the TC terminal. sometimes i get a response, sometimes i dont.
this isn't something i'm addressing yet, but just typing out anyway, as i will explore this later.
i am assuming it is necessary to get "gnu compatibility" to get more standard commands to work?
my assumptions are based on this :
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/faq.html#compatibility
and i am still gaining understanding the nature of a "kernel". still just cranking away at it.
-
it seems as if i do have japanese language display, it also seems to be showing in the urxvt cli.
i also created the symbolic link so that my terminal icon on wbar opens urxvt.
next it seems as if i would use the bash shell. i am going to read up a bit more on that.
then i want to mount partitions with the utf-8 charset.
i am starting to understand this : http://www.utf8everywhere.org/
as far as messing with the core. i'm hesitant to run that command. i believe i will backup my install before proceeding with that one.
thanx everybody! i believe i have reached my goal of displaying cjk (well "J" so far) - and thats pretty much all for now.
-
I'm more of a Windows user too. I just recently switched to Linux and I feel your confusion.
I understand the different shells as follows..
If you know the Command Prompt in Windows, you might know there is cmd.exe and COMMAND.COM.
COMMAND.COM is the Command Interpreter that was also already used in MS-DOS.
It is resposable for executing commands, either typed in directly via keyboard or via script (i.e. batch files = .bat). Some commands are built-in, some are found via %PATH% variable.
cmd.exe does basically the same but offers more/improved features for scripts (.bat & .cmd) and for the later Windows versions.
While in Windows the Command Prompt window (terminal) and the Command Interpreter (shell) is the same thing (either COMMAND.COM or cmd.exe), in Linux it is not.
You can run commands in any Terminal, like aterm or urxvt, but they might get interpreted by Busybox or Bash (or sh or ash or whatever).
-
so...terminal an/or urxvt is kinda like the view, and the shell like busybox/bash are the controller?
terminal and/or urxvt is the interface (as in command line interface) - and busybox/bash are the execution handlers?
if i understand correctly.
thank you for your response.
-
User interface versus command interpreter ;)
-
Hey byteshaman, I was a bit busy lately, but here I am again :)
1— More than one “lang=”: no. This will probably just apply the last one. As I said, the locale you choose is actually just your preference, and you can only have one. Several locales are available on your computer, though, and you can change your preference on a per-application basis, with a command-line like:
env LANG=en_US.utf8 geany
2— SomeApp-locale.tcz: When you see such a package, as you saw for Geany, this package is mandatory for this program to have its interface (menus, dialogs…) in languages other than the native language of this program (usually English). This package usually is of no consequence for the features of the program; for example, Geany is always able to show and edit Japanese texts, wether its menus are in Japanese, or in English (provided the system is configured properlyh UTF-8, fonts…).
3— Bon Echo… From what I see on the Internet, this seems to be a rather old and unmaintained experimental browser, probably to prepare what has become Firefox 4 and later. You may want to change your browser.
4— Terminal, console, and so on… I’ll try to explain, and write as few mistakes as possible :P
In the old days there was the console (that’s software), runing in a terminal (that’s hardware): the console received user input, gave it to the running program, and returned this program’s output. The console was usually connected to some powerful server.
Here’s a famous example of a terminal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100
Instead of booting directly to a target program running in the console, the user was welcomed (in the console) by a command-line interface called “sh”, with the added benefit of:
— having the opportunity to set some environment variables and settings before launching any program,
— being able to launch several programs in a row, or chain them with pipes,
— remembering previous commands through history,
— and so on.
Then X11 arrived (that was more than 25 years ago), with its own handling of characters, and no access to the console, although a Console program for X11 was usually available to see the output from programs running in background on the system.
Terminal emulators were created to bring back the power of the shell to X11. sh was programmed to interact with a terminal (sending specific codes, and expecting specific results). That’s why terminal emulators were written: existing command-line programs (such as sh) continued to run as they did before, thinking they were running in a terminal but actually running in an emulated terminal.
Here’s a page that sheds some light on the complexity of shell/terminal(emulator) interaction:
http://www.ibb.net/~anne/keyboard.html
Now you have to know that several families of terminals existed, some monochrome (black and white, or black and green…), some with 16 colors, some with 256 colors, and slight differences in other areas. Each set of features needed its set of code sequences to trigger them. Thus terminal emulators are not created equal: for example, XTerm “provides DEC VT102 and Tektronix 4014 compatible terminals for programs that can't use the window system directly. This version implements ISO/ANSI colors using the "new" color model (i.e., background color erase). It also implements most of the control sequences for VT220, as well as selected features from other DEC terminals such as VT320, VT420 and VT520.”. Other terminal emulators may have slightly different features. Apart from that, some terminal emulators can only handle 8bit characters (ISO-8859-*, ASCII…), and some can also do UTF-8.
More over, shells evolved too. Features were added, forks were done, features converged too )most notably between ksh and bash)… There is sh, then csh, then bash and tcsh, and ksh too, and don’t forget zsh. And ash, and… so on. bash is the standard on Linux.
Each shell has its own language for history management, jobs management, commands combinations, and so on.
5— UTF-8 and Windows: Beware! Windows programs have a tendency to put a totally useless thing called “BOM” (byte-order-mark) at the start of UTF-8 files, which may appear strangely when shown in other operating systems.
6— ~# bash and nothing happened: Either you don’t have bash installed (but then it should say “command not found”), or it did work and you simply had bash running inside the parent shell, just like any other program ;) Type “exit” to get back to the parent shell.
7— bash /mnt/flashdrive/jp.txt: Your text file is not a shell script. You cannot ask bash to interpret it.
8— Differences between distributions: indeed… Each distribution chooses what it thinks is the best of Unix and starts from there: BSD style, Init V5, and so on. Then each chooses its way of managing packages. RPM and DEB are the most popular formats, but alternatives exist (in Slackware, TinyCore, Arch…), or just plain compiling from sources. There are too many things that can differ to list. Each choice in a distribution stems from a goal in this distribution; for example, TinyCore wants to be small. Choice is good :)
I hope this helps. ’later!
-
YinYeti : thank you sooooooo much. :D
my understanding is much better and this will help my operations here forward.
it is on my resolutions list to buy you a beer. if i had money right now i'd be paying someone to teach me this, so i'm gonna have to write that down and remember it when i get money.
instead, i guess the best i can do is put forth effort until i get money to buy you a beer. the best effort i can put forth is to attempt some sort of tiny core artwork for the tiny core artwork thread.
thank you. much appreciation. your knowledge is very valuable.