If you are a rpm [read: RedHat %#$!@] user, then the easiest way to install the fonts from FBFP is by using the rpm package. The rpm package can be downloaded from http://www.Bengalinux.org/downloads/freebanglafont-0.2-1.noarch.rpm or http://savannah.nongnu.org/files/?group=freebangfont. Just install the rpm package as you would do for any other rpm package with the command

bash$ rpm -ivh freebanglafont-0.2-1.noarch.rpm

If you cannot or do not want to use the rpm package, there is always the good old tgz packages. Remember that you should have root privilege when you execute the commands mentioned here.

Download the files you want to install from http://savannah.nongnu.org/files/?group=freebangfont.

Once you have downloaded all the packages you want, extract all the *.ttf file(s). Basically run the following command on each *.tgz or *.tar.gz you have downloaded.

bash$ tar -zxvf your_font_package.tar.gz

This will create a new directory that will contain different files that comes with the font package. We are only interested about the *.ttf files.

Create a new directory where you want to install these fonts. For the rest of this document, we will assume we are installing the fonts in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/bengali/

Copy the *.ttf files we just extracted in to this directory, and execute the following commands:

bash$ cd /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/bengali

bash$ ttmkfdir

bash$ mkfontdir

bash$ chkfontpath -q -a /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/bengali

Now we will add the new directory to fontconfig configuration. Usually this configuration file is /etc/fonts/fonts.conf. Open this file with you choice of text editor and look for the part that looks somewhat like shown below

  <dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1</dir>
  <dir>/usr/share/fonts</dir>
  <dir>~/.fonts</dir>
        

Add the line

<dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/bengali</dir>

so that now it looks something like this:

  <dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1</dir>
  <dir>/usr/share/fonts</dir>
  <dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/bengali</dir>
  <dir>~/.fonts</dir>
        

After you have saved the file, execute the following command:

bash$ fc-cache

If you have GNOME print library ( libgnomeprint) installed, then execute the following commands:

bash$ cd /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/bengali

bash$ libgnomeprint-2.0-font-install --dynamic

That should be it! If you have any problem, please let us know at <users@bengalinux.org>

Lekho is a text editor for creating Bangla Unicode files without using any type of Unicode font.

You may find Lekho helpful if you are

Some of the major features of Lekho are as follows

Although Lekho is still in development stage, it has enough features to meet the requirements of most people IMHO.

Translation is pretty straight forward - you need to edit the *.po (Portable Object) files. To get the PO files - check out which files are untranslated from http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/status/gnome-2.2/bn/index.html. Download any one of the untranslated files and open it in an editor that supports Bangla (sorry - vi/emacs won't work here). I personally use Yudit - and other possible options are Lekho and the good old Gedit2.

At the beginning of the file you will see some fields for filling in the translators' name, email, translation time, package name, etc. Fill them up, and proceed to the next part.

You will find some lines like

#: atk/atkobject.c:1183
msgid "invalid"
msgstr ""

        

The first line specifies the filename and the position in which the string in the second line occurs. The second line contains the actual string that is to be translated and the third line is the placeholder for the translated string in Bangla. Thus, in a translated file this set would look like

#: atk/atkobject.c:1183
msgid "invalid"
msgstr "bhul"

        

You will have to translate all the sets in a po file before it is considered to be complete. When it is complete, mail it to the translation list <gnome-translation@bengalinux.org>, so that the other developers can also go through it.

While translating, remember not to kill the language ;-). Do not overdo the translation - do not use Sadhu Basha . Also, when the computer is addressing the user, it is samman-shuchak (karun, balun, etc) while the computer is addressed by karo, balo, etc. If a Bangla equivalent sounds too out of the ordinary - keep the English word (in Bangla script) - it can be always changed/improved later. DO NOT overdo anything.

Also, keep proper nouns and trademarks/brandnames as they are. (Bourne Again Shell (BASH) should not be called Aabaar Bourne Shell).

Use the more common word (jaanlaa and not gabaakhya). Also always remember that the words need not be very much applicable to the actual action - an Englishman from the nineteenth century could not even have guessed what “Save” can do in a computer ;-).

If you have comments regarding a certain translated string, please write that (commented out with a “#”), so that we can go through it later. If you have more than one equivalent string in your mind, write all of them, and comment all of them except the one you think is the best.

However, while commenting, remember that you cannot have any comments between the msgid and msgstr lines.

That means

#: atk/atkobject.c:1183
msgid "invalid"
# yadayadayada
msgstr "bhul"

        

is invalid. Instead you should write-

#: atk/atkobject.c:1183
msgid "invalid"
msgstr "bhul"
# yadayadayada

        

Also ...last but in no way the least, spellcheck, spellcheck, spellcheck. During translation session - always sit with your dictionary, or even better, the Bangla Baanaan Abhidhan from the Bangladesh Bangla Academy. The bspeller from Bengalinux may be useful here.

Another recommended book is the Samartha-ShabdaKosh (Bangla Thesaraus) by Ashok Mukherjee from Sahitya Samsad.

One of the most tricky things for a translator is understanding the context. For example, by simply looking at a pofile, a translator will have no clue whether Open stands for Kholo or Khola. To do context sensitive translation, a translator has to check out his/her translations in action, that is, in the application interfaces. This section describes a hack to see the translations without having to recompile the program.

To begin with, setup the locale for Bangla and install some Bangla fonts.

Once that is done, get all the translated pofiles in a single folder in your machine (to avoid mess), and one by one convert them into MO files with the command:

bash$ msgfmt -o file.mo file.version.gnomeversion_bn.po

          /usr/share/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/gdm-2.4.mo
          /usr/share/locale/sk/LC_MESSAGES/gdm-2.4.mo
          /usr/share/locale/sl/LC_MESSAGES/gdm-2.4.mo
          /usr/share/locale/sv/LC_MESSAGES/gdm-2.4.mo
          /usr/share/locale/ta/LC_MESSAGES/gdm-2.4.mo
          

Once you are finished with that, copy the MO files to /usr/share/locale/bn_IN.UTF-8 or /usr/share/locale/bn_BD.UTF-8, depending on how you set up your locale.

Now, open up /etc/X11/gdm/locale.alias and add the following lines to it.

        Bengali                 bn_IN.UTF-8,bn_IN
        

After this, restart X, select Bengali in the Languages menu and relogin into GNOME. You will be presented with a Bangla system.