[tlug] Japanese Debian-based easy install?

[Michael Smith <smith@example.com>]

Does anybody have recommendations for the best way to get a
working Debian-based system installed with an IME for Japanese
input and X-Windows defaults set to Japanese? Or better yet,
anybody made or have a CD image you've used for setting up
Japanese-enabled Debian systems?

I'm specifically looking for something Debian-based because Debian
is what I use and am most familiar with, so when I get somebody
set up and they need help later, that makes it a lot easier to help.

I have recently been giving friends and some co-workers copies of
the Japanese Knoppix live-CD distro from the AIST site:

  http://unit.aist.go.jp/itri/knoppix/

People I have given that to really like it. Boots into a default
Japanese locale/environment/IME is Japanese, with no additional
config needed. It is by far the best way that I've found to get
people to try out Linux. With most other live CDs I've seen,
people trying them out quickly lose interest after they discover
that they can't input or view Japanese without doing some
additional config (or can't at all).

I've found that some people, once they try it, like it enough that
they want to install a persistent version on their machines. So, I
tried running the version of knoppix-installer that's distributed
on it (that version has been modified to install a Knoppix/Debian
environment to match the environment on the live CD). It didn't
work (at least with the Knoppix 3.4 version I've tried) -- the
Knoppix installer does not seem to be writing the boot info
correctly, because boot fails at startup with an Error 15 message
from grub.

Anyway, I'm sure I can get the boot problem figured out, but that
hiccup has made me wonder if there might be some other
alternatives, and made me wonder what other people might be using.
Anybody else had success with helping other people get set up with
Debian-based system with Japanese support?

  --Mike

-- 
Michael Smith
http://logopoeia.com/ | http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/890

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