Portage Localization

ryszardzonk · Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:33 pm Post subject: Portage Localization

Hi. There is this idea I mentioned in this thread http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-499023.html that portage could inform user of its actions in their respective languages. One way of starting that project could be substituting fail messages "install failed" with let's say "${instfail}" and through using of an e-class there could be added "inherit nls" to the ebuild that would do all the magic of finding out users ${LANG} setitng and substitute "${instfail} with proper message.
Same could be done for all other messages. :idea:

Any thoughts on that :?:

Is there anything of that sort of work being done :?:

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Genone · Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 4:45 pm Post subject:

Not going to make many new friends with this opinion, but I personally dislike localization of system tools, mainly for support reasons.
My biggest concern are translated error messages in bug reports (IMHO error messages should be canonical and translations of them should be outlawed). It really sucks to get bug reports that are useless because the error message is translated (and therefore useless).

Also in my experience translations in free software are often ... less than perfect. I mean at one point I had to install the english version of a program to understand what an option meant as I didn't understand the translated label (hint: don't translate the term "port" in a network configuration dialog). Also for gcc error messages I often have no clue what the translated error messages mean when the english version is perfectly clear. Maybe things have gotten better recently or maybe those were exceptions.

And finally I'm worried what kind of users this would attract. I know this is going to trigger the "gentoo devs are elitist" posts but I think that people administrating Gentoo systems should have a somewhat technical understanding, and understanding english is part of that.

Not to mention the additional maintentance and added complexity issues this would bring with it.

If anyone wants to work on this, fine, but you probably have to do this on your own and if you want to get it merged you better come up with a very good plan and implementation.

daschapa · Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 5:00 pm Post subject:

ryszardzonk · Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:31 pm Post subject: hard job...

I must say those points are quite valid and sure would need to be really taken into consideration, but noone said it would be easy and the last sentence of yours does not look to promissing as I sense there what I would call hostility toward it. I hope that not all devs have this attitude., but I'll try to motivate You and maybe others toward it.
First I'll answers your words

Genone · Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:53 pm Post subject: Re: hard job...

ryszardzonk · Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 2:19 am Post subject: Localization Bump

Well, first of all *bump*

I've searched the forum for this issue and found that it actually has been discused in the past, primarly in this posts
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-102421-highlight-portage+localization.html and http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13618.
Among other reasons to get translation implemented the people there provided the idea that the portage itself dont have to be translated at present however the strings themselves should be as it a good practice to do so. What personaly struck me is that this threads are as early as year 2003. Reasoning behind leaving the issue behind back then was that portage envolves to fast and it would be to much work. There has been several portage rewrites since then practicly from ground up and I am stunned that there is simply no place for translantable strings to make their way into portage. One would think that when the rewrite happens it is a good moment for it. My question now is, do we wait even longer for portage to grow even further to make the move almost imposible or someone steps up for the rest of as and make it happen... I believe it would be worth the effort.

yngwin · Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 4:29 am Post subject:

ryszardzonk · Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 3:37 pm Post subject: step forward

chrbecke · Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 4:25 pm Post subject:

Well, I get along allright with English error messages, although it's not my native language - but I consider localization of portage (as of any other program) a good idea, generally.
And regarding bug reports with localized error messages:

Genone · Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:57 pm Post subject:

steveL · Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:18 pm Post subject:

Arfrever · Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:22 pm Post subject:

steveL · Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 4:54 am Post subject:

seqizz · n00b Joined: 14 Jan 2008 Posts: 63 Location: seqizz.net

I know, i know.. i hate bumps.
An old topic, and everybody thinks different about this.

I'll start to translating man pages to Turkish. But before that one, i've a complete translation patch for *only* emerge --help and emerge --help --verbose outputs. Some information about using emerge bla bla.. Details [link] (turkish)

Particular translations can really confuse users, but don't we need to find a solution?
(

if this is a problem)

Maybe the information part of the emerge (like man pages and --help, not --info) should be translated, maybe not*.

*On the other hand, using gentoo already needs English (to solve potential problems etc..)
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Arfrever · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:39 am Post subject:

seqizz · n00b Joined: 14 Jan 2008 Posts: 63 Location: seqizz.net

I know my way is so dirty, and not translating actually replacing.
Is gettext default for portage?
Or this will mean nothing.. (Translating over an experimental patch..)
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