On Sun, 2005-07-31 at 17:11 +0900, Dave Gutteridge wrote:
... cut ... I don't want to have to be learning UNIX commands and practicing Japanese at the same time. ... cut ... Nor is always logging out and back in really a feasible option either, given the frequency with which I need to have both languages available. ... cut ... Unfortunately, this is one of those "deal breaker" situations. If I can't get Japanese support, then CentOS will be a curiousity for me while I mainly work in Windows. But if I can get Japanese support, then I can start using CentOS as my main OS.
I've had limited exposure to using UNIX/Linux console and GNOME 2 environments for multiple languages, but I typically did it on a per- user basis. I.e., I would ensure I installed all i18N support, and then configure "LANG" and other settings (gotta find the old HOWTO when I did this) so when specific users logged in, they would experience it in another language.
Not only do I don't know how you can do this in Windows, but I thought Windows was rather install-specific and rendered a fixed language (except for maybe terminal services?). I'm kinda confused on what you expect out of CentOS that Windows provides? Or is that you know Windows can't provide it but hoping CentOS can?
BTW, you do _not_ need to "log out" to run applications as a different user. Although I do have to choose 1 user to login as, I often use 2-3 accounts simultaneously in X using Xauth to authorize other users so they can display applications on my desktop. I don't see any reason why you can't do this for multiple users using different languages, especially when GNOME maintains its own sessions for different users, when when displaying to the same DISPLAY.
I hope there's someone who understands the language settings enough to keep CentOS alive for me.
I personally would like to know how Windows solves this. Everything in my background says it doesn't.