[tlug] Japanese in Slackware (8.x or 9.0)

[Scott Robbins <scottro@example.com>]

I like Slackware for various reasons, however, I've been unable to get
it working with Japanese input. (No problem reading Japanese with
opera).

Here are the steps I've taken--during installation, chosen the
glibc-i18n libraries.  Installed Canna and kinput2, which install
without error.  Installed rxvt including xim and kanji support.

Called rxvt with my usual langx script, the XMODIFIERS="@example.com=kinput2" 
LC_CTYPE=ja_JP ${1+"$@"} using rxvt as the argument. Tried with mlterm
as well.  Tried the version suggested for FreeBSD (that works with
FreeBSD, XMODIFIERS='@example.com=kinput2' LANG=ja_JP ${1+"$@"}  Tried setting 
the XMODIFIERS in my .Xdefaults.

When I call rxvt with the langx script, I get a message that setting
locale failed. Searching for that error on google brought me many hits 
on programming, but nothing that seemed related.  

Yamashita san gave me some links in Japanese, however, I haven't been
able to make them (as I understood them) work. Jonathan Katz-Brown's
article gives links to packages that are apparently specifically made
for Slackware, but the link to those packages seems to be broken, at
least here in the US.  

I'm not a programmer, and my Japanese reading is very weak--too weak to
do a adequate search for articles on this in Japanese.  

The method listed above has worked with Root Linux, Yoper and Crux. With
Arch Linux, I had to uncomment a line for locales in the glibc makefile
and it also worked.  None of the ones listed above had Japanese packages,
at least as far as I know. (Gentoo, RH and FreeBSD all have their own
installation methods and include Japanese packages either on the CD or 
easily installed with ports or portage.)


In all cases, (not sure if this is relevant) it worked in twm, wmaker
and fluxbox.  (I also tried downloading and installing the Slack kde 
internationalization package, thinking that maybe it would help even if 
I didn't use kde)


Therefore, I suspect that it's something very simple
that I simply lack the knowledge (and/or ability) to uncover.

The one article I found in English, that I
thought might help me involved the gentleman getting some
Plamo packages and hacking them, something which is probably beyond my
expertise. So, to finally get to my questions,
Is there anyone here running Japanese in Slackware, and can it be done
with little or no programming knowledge?  Is there a pacakage, or
perhaps packages, that I'm missing?

TIA

-- 

Scott Robbins

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