Sunday, January 13, 2008

Enabling Sinhala (සිංහල) in your PC

පහසුවෙන්‍ සහ ලේසියෙන්‍ සිංහල ගන්‍න.

Hi all Sri Lankan. Why use english, Now Sinhala (සිංහල) coming in to your PC. Use follwing simple instraction to enable sinhala in your PC.

සිංහල ගන්‍න සිංහලෙන්‍ ලියන්‍න.

  • For Linux Users.

install Debian and Ubuntu Sinhala repositories

What is available?


  • LKLUG Unicode Sinhala font

  • SCIM transliterated input method

    • Automatically sets the required environment variables in /etc/environment

    How to install
  • Add to /etc/apt/sources.list , in ubuntu System ->Administration -> Source List

    1. On Debian 4.0 (Etch)

      deb http://sinhala.sourceforge.net/debian/i386/etch/ ./
    2. On Debian testing (Lenny)

      deb http://sinhala.sourceforge.net/debian/i386/lenny/ ./
    3. On Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) i386

      deb http://sinhala.sourceforge.net/ubuntu/i386/gutsy/ ./
    4. On Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) amd64

      deb http://sinhala.sourceforge.net/ubuntu/amd64/gutsy/ ./
  • Update repository metadata:

    apt-get update
  • Install Sinhala packages:

    apt-get install sinhala-gnu-linux
  • Upgrade relevant packages:

    apt-get upgrade
  • Logout and login again. Environment variables need to be set/updated (NO NEED TO REBOOT)


How to test


  1. Visit http://si.wikipedia.org/ and see if the Sinhala letters render correctly.

  2. Copy and paste some of the content from Sinhala wikipedia to Open Office Writer. Then highlight the Sinhala text and choose the LKLUG font to display them.

  3. To test SCIM, press Control+space or Shift+Space whilst you are running a GNOME application. Then select one of the Sinhala input methods. You can see new icon with keyborad in you gnoome panel.




For Windows Users ...


  • Get and install sinhala pack form fonts.lk



සිංහල ගන්‍න සිංහලෙන්‍ ලියන්‍න.




Special thanks go to Lanka Linux User Group (LKLUG) and fonts.lk



Monday, January 7, 2008

Why Open Souce ?

Use open source or free software instead of your illegal software.