Typing Chinese in English Ubuntu 8.04

Update on Sept 12, 2010
For tips to install Chinese in any Debian based system, please follow this links:

• Chinese Debian Mini Howto


• Make Debian support Chinese

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I always prefer to install the OS in English and enable Chinese.  However, Chinese tool (scim) is not installed by default. Followings are my steps to enable Chinese support and typing in Ubuntu(6.04 ?)

1. Go to System -> Administration -> Language Support
   Choose Chinese (Traditional and/or Simplified)


2. install packages scim-chinese, scim-tables-zh, and all other dependencies


3. $ vi /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim
   change xim input to scim 
   
   GTK_IM_MODULE="scim"
   QT_IM_MODULE="scim"


4. without using root, type
   $ im-switch -z <Your locale> -s scim
   your locale can be figured out by command
   $ locale | grep LANG


5. restart your X (Ctrl-Alt Del), then Ctrl-spacebar should give you a scim toolbar

P.S. After the scim toolbar is poping up, you still need to right click the toolbar to setup what input method you would like to use.  Personally, I used Changjie3 to type Chinese, it seems the closest to the Windows version of Changjie.

P.S.  I wonder if there is easier way...

yum database clean up

Sometimes when yum is not updating, or simply not synchronized with the repository, it's a good idea to clean up the cache database and fetch a new list from the server.

1. yum clean all


2. mv /var/cache/yum/ /tmp/


3. mv /var/lib/rpm/__db* /tmp/


4. rpm --rebuilddb

Somehow I tend to move the files to /tmp/ rather then just remove them, since the rm -rf command is the No. 1 enemy of idiocity.

Chinese fonts in Linux ( blur when antialias is true )

If you install your Linux box with English as the primary language, you will notice the Chinese fonts are blurred and hard to read. That is due to anti-aliasing of Chinese characters. I would NOT recommend to disable all font anti-aliasing in Font Preferences, because anti-alias is good and it makes many fonts look easier for eyes, just not Chinese characters when they are small.

The solution is so set false for Chinese fonts under a specific font size. Create a file called local.conf under /etc/fonts/ directory

vi /etc/fonts/local.conf

and copy and paste the following to the file:

<?xml version="1.0"?><!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">

<fontconfig>

<!-- Disable font alias for Chinese <= 18px -->

<match target="font">

<test qual="any" name="family" compare="eq">

<string>AR PL Mingti2L Big5</string>

<string>AR PL SungtiL Big5</string>

<string>AR PL New Sung</string>

<string>AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni</string>

<string>AR PL ZenKai Uni</string>

<string>Ming(ISO10646)</string>

<string>MingLiu</string>

<string>PMingLiu</string>

<string>Kochi Mincho</string>

<string>Baekmuk Dotum</string>

</test>

<test name="pixelsize" compare="less_eq">

<double>18</double>

</test>

<edit name="antialias">

<bool>false</bool>

</edit>

<edit name="hinting">

<bool>true</bool>

</edit>

</match>

<alias>

<family>serif</family>

<prefer>

<family>Bitstream Vera Serif</family>

<family>Times New Roman</family>

<family>Times</family>

<family>AR PL New Sung</family>

<family>AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni</family>

<family>AR PL Mingti2L Big5</family>

<family>AR PL SungtiL GB</family>

<family>SimSun</family>

</prefer>

</alias>

<alias>

<family>sans-serif</family>

<prefer>

<family>Bitstream Vera Sans</family>

<family>Arial</family>

<family>Verdana</family>

<family>Helvetica</family>

<family>AR PL New Sung</family>

<family>AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni</family>

<family>AR PL kaitiM Big5</family>

<family>AR PL kaitiM GB</family>

</prefer>

</alias>

<alias>

<family>monospace</family>

<prefer>

<family>Bitstream Vera Sans Mono</family>

<family>Courier New</family>

<family>Courier</family>

<family>AR PL New Sung</family>

<family>AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni</family>

</prefer>

</alias>

</fontconfig>

wordpress import return admin.php

When importing wordpress to wordpress database, there are several problems I encountered.

1. Unable to create directory "uploads"


2. If your xml file is big, it forces you to download the admin.php after pressing the "Upload file and import" button.

Fixes:

1. change mode of your upload directory to writable (chmod 777 uploads)


2. edit the apache php.ini file to increase the file upload limits
   
   
   
   1. vi /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
   
   
   2. change "memory_limit" from 8M to 20M, or more
   
   
   3. change "upload_max_filesize" from 5M to 20M, or more
   
   
   4. restart your apache server: /etc/init.d/apache restart
   
   
   
   

After all these modifications, you should be able to import your wordpress xml file. Good luck!