1.1. Purpose/Scope of this HOWTO

This document will help set up a working Tamil Linux environment. Step-by-step instructions are provided for setting up fonts, editors, etc. This document also describes the essential instructions need to use web browsers, edit documents and print them.

The base URL of this document is:

1.2. Feedback

Comments and suggestions about this document may be directed to the author (<venkat@tamillinux.org>)

1.3. Copyright and License

© 2002, 2003 V.Venkataramanan.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no invariant Front-Cover text, no Back-Cover text and no invarient sections.

A verbatim copy of the license can be obtained from the Free Software Foundation Website at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html

1.4. Acknowledgements

Several postings by the following people were useful in writing this document. The following people are thanked for all their help:

Thuraiappah Vaseeharan, D. Sivaraj, Sivakumar Shanmugasundaram, Dinesh Nadarajah, Anbumani Subramanian, Ganesan Rajagopal, M.K. Saravanan,...

3.1. TSCII

TSCII is a glyph-based, 8-bit bilingual encoding. It uses a unique set of glyphs; the usual lower ASCII set. Roman letters with standard punctuation marks occupy the first 128 slots and the Tamil glyphs occupy the upper ASCII segment (slots 128-256). A good overview of the early font encoding schemes and a the rationale behind the TSCII approach can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5180/tscii.html.

The home URL for TSCII volunteers is http://www.tamil.net/tscii. This site discusses the TSCII encoding and provides tools including fonts, keyboard drivers, editors and inter-conversion tools for various platforms. The font encoding table according to TSCII-1.6 can be found at http://www.tamil.net/tscii/charset16.gif.

The current version of TSCII is 1.6, and a revision is expected anytime now that will fix some anomalies in using various slots for encoding. This version 1.7 will be fully backward compatible with 1.6 and is expected to gain popularity. The TSCII discussion group currently brainstorms on modifications to TSCII-1.6. You may be able to participate in the discussions by becoming a member. You may also be able to download various beta tools from there. The font encoding table according to TSCII-1.7 (draft) can be found at .

3.2. TAB

TAB is a character based bilingual standard proposed by the government of Tamil Nadu. The TAB bilingual encoding table can be found at http://www.tamilnet99.org/annex4.htm. Tools for TAB encoding (mostly restricted to the Windows platform) can also be downloaded in the vicinity of this page.

3.3. Miscellaneous fonts and encodings

There are too many types, and unfortunately they are not documented well. It is beyond the scope of this document to discuss them.

5.1. Installing fonts

Linux, by default, uses "pcf" fonts and one can also use "bsd" fonts; these are bitmapped fonts that display under X and can be printed. But, as is common with all bitmapped fonts, these are not always WYSIWYG in print. For high-quality printing you need "Type-I" fonts (Adobe), with Ghostscript you need PS fonts and for "afm" fonts (American Font metrics) are used. But most of the Tamil fonts that are freely available are TrueType (ttf). We will see next how to get all these fonts working.

5.2. Bitmapped fonts

A bitmapped font is a matrix of dots; because of this, these fonts are device-independent. A 75 dpi font, which is good enough for displaying, is still a 75 dpi font in your 1200 dpi printer. So usually bitmapped fonts are created for a specific purpose, such as for displaying on a monitor or for printing. Linux usually uses bdf or pcf font for console or X display. Fonts like those created by dvips or dvi are printer-related bitmapped fonts. These fonts occupy large sizes, but programs circumvent this by dynamically creating them as and when they are needed, and at a specific resolution.

You can get bitmapped Tamil fonts for various applications from:

When an application makes a font request to the X Server, XFree86 looks for fonts in specific directories. This means that when you add fonts to your system and you want them to be recognized by X Server, you need to tell X about the location of these fonts. Simply add a directory to your font path with the commands:

mkfontdir xset fp+ <directory>

where the family directory is the name of the directory where you have fonts. Once you have done this you have to ask the server to get this registered for the session, with the command

xset fp rehash

Since you will want these commands to run automatically, you should put them in your .xinitrc file ( or possibly your .Xclients or .xsession file -- this depends on how you start X. Another way to have the commands set automatically is edit XF86Config. For example, to add /usr/share/fonts/myfonts to the font path when X is started, edit XF86Config like this:

... Section "Files" ... FontPath /usr/share/fonts/myfonts ... EndSection ...

The advantage of editing XF86Config is that the resulting changes are system wide.

5.3. TrueType fonts

You may get TrueType fonts for TSCII, TAB and TSCII1.7 encoding from the download section of http://tamil.homelinux.org/. Alternate sources for these fonts are

TSCII - http://www.tamil.net/tscii/

TAB - http://www.tamilnet99.org/ and http://www.thinnai.com

TSCII-1.7 (experimental) - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tscii/files/

Installing these fonts are either too easy or too difficult. Too easy if you have one of the latest distributions, like RedHat7.x or Mandrake7.x. This is because RedHat (and Mandrake, maybe SuSE) come with xfs pre-packaged. It is also easy to find xfs for Debian, but as far as I know, Debian does not come with xfs packaged.

Debian users are now redirected to this mini-howto on TrueType fonts in Debian - http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/TT-Debian-3.html

There is also another utility, xfstt, which is easier to install and use, but xfs is becoming popular as it can handle Adobe Type1 in addition to TrueType fonts.

If you do not have either of these, consider getting either xfs (not to be confused with Silicon Graphics (SGI) sponsored XFS journaling file system) from http://www.xfree86.org.

or xfstt from http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jec/programs/xfsft/. You may also get xfstt binaries from http://independence.seul.org/, or reading an article about xfstt in the Linux Gazette at

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5.3.1. Installing TrueType Fonts

You need to run these commands as root. If you are currently logged in as a normal user, you can use su to do this now.

You should now have xfs availability, otherwise use the steps in the previous section to obtain it.

In some distributions like Mandrake, installing TrueType fonts is a cakewalk. Just go to DrakConf and use the font install utility - follow a few easy steps there and you'll have them all.

Put your TrueType fonts in whatever directory you want. For example, /usr/share/tamiltt.

From within the directory containing your new fonts, type:

ttmkfdir -m 50 -o fonts.scale

This makes a file that will contain the necessary information about the fonts for the xfs server. The option -m 50 specifies the magnification for the fonts; I have seen some Tamil fonts working well only with -m 100.

Then type:

mkfontdir

Now you can add the new directory to your xfs search path. Red Hat (and Red Hat-like) distributions come with a neat utility to do this called chkfontpath. Run chkfontpath like this:

chkfontpath --add /usr/share/tamiltt

This will add the new font directory to your font path.

(Other users, who have an xfs font server, without ttf support, can do this by editing their xfs configuration file.

If xfs is already installed on your system, you should see which port it is running on. You can do this with the following command:

ps ax grep xfs

Then check your XFree86 font path with this command:

xset -q

If your font path includes something like "unix:/port number," where port number is the port on which the server is running, then you already have xfs set up properly. Otherwise, you should add it to your XFree86 font path with these commands:

xset fp+ <unix/:port number>

xset fp rehash

The port number is a numerical value, something like 7100.

You can add the fontpath permanently by editing your .xinitrc. To add it system-wide, edit your XF86Config file (either under /etc/X11/XF86Config, /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, /etc/XF86Config, or /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config), by adding the following line to the Files section:

FontPath "unix/:port number"

Here is an example of how it should look:

... Section Files ... FontPath "unix/:-1" ... EndSection ...

If xfs is already properly installed, then you can restart it like this as root:

service xfs restart

After restarting xfs, it is a good idea to restart your X session.

As most of the users in Tamil will be doing this, let me summarize the essential steps.

1. Become root.

2. Download and copy some ttf fonts into a directory (say /usr/share/fonts/tamiltt ).

3. Go to that directory and do a ttmkfdir -m 50 -o fonts.scale (use the -m 100 option if your fonts do not budge).

4. Do a mkfontdir . (Notice that you need to specify the directory either absolutely or with a dot).

5. Do a chkfontpath --add /usr/share/fonts/tamiltt . (Remember this command is available only in Red Hat-like distributions. If you can run this successfully, skip the remaining steps and restart the X server).

6. Do ps ax | grep xfs and get the xfs port known.

7. Check your font path: xset -q

   If your font path includes something like "unix:/port number", (something like "unix: 7100"), add this to your xfont path:

   xset fp+ unix: port number

   xset fp rehash

8. It is a good idea to restart the X Server.

9. If everything works fine, update your .xinitrc file, wherever it is.

10. Have fun!

5.4. Other Font Servers

There is another project, X-TrueType Server, worth looking into, at http://www.io.com/~kazushi/xtt/.

Another interesting project with broader scope is FreeType; check http://www.freetype.org.

I personally feel xfs is a great utility; it can handle Type1 fonts (very useful if you use programs like GIMP). Besides, a stand alone xfs server is not attached to X server. This means that you can deliver these fonts for remote X displays. I use this feature extensively with VNC Server running in my host and VNC Viewer running locally in Windows. It's something of a luxury having a Tamil Linux desktop while working for my employer.

6.1. tamil_kmap

The first driver is tamil_kmap, created by Vasee. It is based on the original version of Siva. It is operable under both TSCII 1.6 and TAB encodings. The detailed installation instructions are given in the README file in the package. It is very simple to install. First, untar the package into a temporary directory. Then type:

cp ta /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/

then: cp Compose /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1

and put the shell script setkb into a directory on your system PATH . You may need to become root to copy these files into these directories.

To use the Tamil keyboard, type setkb tscii or setkb tab. From inside the keyboard driver you will be able to switch between the two standards, and also between Roman and Tamil fonts.

6.2. tamilvp

The other keyboard driver, tamilvp (vp for Visaip Palakai) is written and maintained by Dinesh. As indicated above, you may download that from the Yahoo! tamilinix group file section. It is available as rpm (I have not tried it out yet). Just install the rpm and files will be in appropriate locations. To run the program type tamilvp and you will get the GUI cell to choose between Tamil (TSCII 1.6 or TAB) and English.

7.1. Getting Localization Files

For the newbie, it is very easy to search the web for Tamil KDE localizations RPMs. They are usually labelled something like kde-i18n-Tamil-2.0-1mdk.i586.rpm. i18n is just that: i(nternationalizatio)n, 18(18letters). Tamil is the localization setting corresponding to the Tamil language. mdk signifies the package for Mandrake distribution. Then comes the most important part; 2.0-1, the KDE version number. Your base KDE version and this should be the same, so when downloading, make sure that you get the proper localized menus for the proper KDE version. i586 signifies the precompiled binaries for the intel 586 platforms. Make sure that you get the proper binary (there are usually source rpms and rpms for other platforms such as alpha). If you are a newbie you are better off using GUI based rpm installer such as GNORPM or KPackage. First do a test install and check if your system has all the needed packages. If not go to the same source from where you downloaded the Tamil localization and get them. After making sure that you installed all dependencies, install the kde-i18n-tamil package as well.

If you are not a newbie, you know it. Get KDE Tamil i18n files, and if you have time, get the sources and compile them!

KDE localization uses TSCII 1.6 encoding. This means that you will need at least one TSCII font. Read the section on fonts as to how to get it.

7.2. Choosing a Tamil locale

This section assumes that have installed at least one TSCII font (preferably several, to jazz up your GUI) and the KDE Tamil localization package.

From Start, go to configuration > KDE > Personalization and choose default (c) location.

Tamil/India is yet to be made available under countries/languages.

Your user interface is now set in Tamil. If you see some garbage on the window header etc., pat yourself on the back. You are ready to see Tamil; move on!

7.3. Choosing Tamil fonts for GUI

Again, from Start go to configuration >KDE >LooknFeel. You will see a set of fonts for most (these are the ones used in display). Choose a Tamil font instead for all these. Accept.

Well done, you now see Tamil everywhere on your desktop. You are ready, with a fully operational Tamil system.

7.4. KDE Miscellaneous

As with every other project, KDE-Tamil also needs a lot of volunteers. Contact either Sivakumar or Vaseeharan (both of them can be reached through the egroup

Visit before you try KDE Tamil. If you want to convince yourself (and be bowled over), view the screenshots from tamillinux.org site.

KDE's i18n process is unicode-based. As a work around, Trolltech's QTsciiCodec class provides conversion to and from the Tamil TSCII encoding. This codec uses the mapping table found at . Unfortunately Tamil uses composed Unicode. As such, Unicode fonts cannot be used under KDE-TSCII; you need to have TSCII fonts. The TSCII codec was contributed to Qt by Hans Petter Bieker <bieker@kde.org>.

9.1. L^AT_EX

L^AT_EX is perhaps the mother of all typographic systems. It frees the author from the trivia of typesetting and concentrate on the content. It does not use the WYSWYG input, but the end result is great. Recent developments are centered toward internationalization. Unfortunately lack of unicode standard does not permit Tamil to be tried under the more ambitious Omega Project. Once again, workaround is the only way. A first step in Tamil has been attempted by Thuraiappah Vaseeharan. You may get the the package from the tamillinux.org site. The tar ball contains a great readme file that describes the installation and usage. The tamiltex package does a short work by keeping all related stuff under one directory (which means that you need to keep your work under the same directory to compile your source files). But the great thing about this package is that it is compatible with both TSCII and TAB encodings and the results are just what you would expect from a L^AT_EX package - great!

9.2. Postscript

Many Linux applications use Ghostscript to print, which means that you must have Ghostscript configured if you want to use Tamil in printed documents. If L^AT_EX is there, can PostScript be far away? Not thanks to Vasee. Set the environment variable GS_FONTPATH to point to your TrueType font directory. For example, I have:

GS_FONTPATH=/usr/local/share/fonts/tamiltt export GS FONTPATH

You should be able to view Tamil PostScript files.

9.3. PDF

As of now, the only source to create PDF files is the PDF package. If you are able to successfully compile your source with the tamiltex package, use

pdflatex source.tex

to generate the PDF file. You should be able to view it, using xdvi or Adobe's Acroread for Linux.