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The user interface of Fedora Core 1 under English locale is quite pretty but the Chinese one still ugly. Does it support reading and writing Chinese under English locale like Windows 2K? This article shows how I installed Chinese support for Fedora under English locale(en_US.UTF-8).

• Fedora Installation
  Select only English(USA) locale. Some fonts and input methods will also installed if you select Chinese locale. But those are no use.

  Select and Install Gnome, Development, Kernel Development, Gnome Development and X Development. You may ignore the development packages if you don’t need them at all.

• Fonts Installation
  Copy the TrueType fonts you want from Microsoft Windows to /usr/share/fonts/windows/. You many find the fonts at Windows’ \WINNT\Fonts directory.

  Than execute the commands as root.
  
cd /usr/share/fonts/windows
ttmkfdir .
cp fonts.scale fonts.dir
chkfontpath --add /usr/share/fonts/windows

  Here’s the fonts I installed
  
(Arial) - arial.ttf arialbd.ttf arialbi.ttf ariali.ttf
(Courier New) - cour.ttf courbi.ttf courbd.ttf couri.ttf
(Tahoma) - tahoma.ttf tahomabd.ttf
(Verdana) - verdana.ttf verdanab.ttf verdanai.ttf verdanaz.ttf
(GB) - simsun.ttc
(BIG5) - mingliu.ttc
(KR) - batang.ttc gulim.ttc
(JP) - msgothic.ttc msmincho.ttc


• Input Method Installation and Configuration
  The Smart Common Input Method platform, SCIM for short, is an input method that works under English locale. You may download it from its website http://www.turbolinux.com.cn/~suzhe/scim/. I just installed the following two RPM packages
  
rpm -hUv scim-0.8.2-1.i586.rpm
rpm -hUv scim-chinese-0.2.6-1.i586.rpm

  Than, you have to midify the file /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/xinput, in order to start SCIM automatically after X started. Here’s the patch file
  
115c115,118
< XIM="none"
---
> # XIM="none"
> if [ -e /usr/bin/scim ]; then
> XIM="SCIM"
> fi
174a178,180
> SCIM)
> XIM_PROGRAM=scim
> XIM_ARGS="-d" ;;

  If you want, also change zh_CN*), zh_TW*), etc., to use SCIM under those locale.

  And you need modify the file /etc/gtk-2.0/gtk.immodules, to use X input methods in gtk applications. Here’s the patch file
  
37c37
< "xim" "X Input Method" "gtk20" "/usr/share/locale" "ko:ja:zh"
---
> "xim" "X Input Method" "gtk20" "/usr/share/locale" "en:ko:ja:zh"

  Also comment the IMs that you never need.

• Done
  Restart X.

Fedora的英文界面已经非常漂亮了，可是中文界面还是比较丑陋。下面是我怎样在Fedora的英文界面(en_US.UTF-8)下安装中文支持。

• Fedora安装
  安装的时候Locale仅选择English(USA) 就可以了。中文那些只是安装了些字体和输入法，而那些又都是不需要的。
  我还选择安装了Gnome, Development, Kernel Development, Gnome Development和X Development。
• 字体安装
  将Microsoft Windows下的相应TrueType拷贝到Fedora相应目录。我是放在/usr/share/fonts/windows目录下。
  然后以root执行下面的命令
  
cd /usr/share/fonts/windows
ttmkfdir .
cp fonts.scale fonts.dir
chkfontpath --add /usr/share/fonts/windows

  以下是我安装的字体文件
  
(Arial) - arial.ttf arialbd.ttf arialbi.ttf ariali.ttf
(Courier New) - cour.ttf courbi.ttf courbd.ttf couri.ttf
(Tahoma) - tahoma.ttf tahomabd.ttf
(Verdana) - verdana.ttf verdanab.ttf verdanai.ttf verdanaz.ttf
(GB) - simsun.ttc
(BIG5) - mingliu.ttc
(KR) - batang.ttc gulim.ttc
(JP) - msgothic.ttc msmincho.ttc

• 输入法安装
  输入法我选择SCIM，这个输入法支持在英文Locale下输入中文。下载地址为http://www.turbolinux.com.cn/~suzhe/scim/。找需要的RPM包下载并安装就可以了。我只安装了下面两个RPM。
  
rpm -hUv scim-0.8.2-1.i586.rpm
rpm -hUv scim-chinese-0.2.6-1.i586.rpm

  接着要修改一下/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/xinput文件，让SCIM在X启动的时候也启动。下面是patch文件
  
115c115,118
< XIM="none"
---
> # XIM="none"
> if [ -e /usr/bin/scim ]; then
> XIM="SCIM"
> fi
174a178,180
> SCIM)
> XIM_PROGRAM=scim
> XIM_ARGS="-d" ;;

  这个patch没有修改中文Locale下的输入方式，如果需要可以自己修改。找找该文件中的zh_CN*)、zh_TW*)的部分，然后修改一下。

  接着还要修改一下/etc/gtk-2.0/gtk.immodules文件，让gtk的应用程序使用X的输入法。patch文件如下
  
37c37
< "xim" "X Input Method" "gtk20" "/usr/share/locale" "ko:ja:zh"
---
> "xim" "X Input Method" "gtk20" "/usr/share/locale" "en:ko:ja:zh"

  我还将该文件中的其他不需要的输入法都注释。

• 搞定
  重新启动一下X，看看效果。

照此处理之后，不用再做其他设置，中文就可以显示得很漂亮，中文输入也可以使用了。当然还没有100%弄好，比如中文的粗体和斜体还有些问题。xmms，Acrobat Redaer等中文还需要另外设置。但这已经是一个可以工作的环境了。