How to make Debian support Chinese had already be the FAQ in my mailbox and ICQ history. Indeed, most debian packages already got good chinese support as other distribution. However, several different locale naming schema (Yup, Openi18n is trying to standardize it but it take time) and many other issues makes it is so troublesome that you need to modify many files and I always forget to mark the steps down. While my notebook harddisk is damaged recenlty, I need to do the setup again finally. And answer this FAQ here.

Notice: An updated chinese version was posted in
http://wiki.debian.org.hk/w/Make_Debian_support_Chinese. An english version was also created in http://wiki.debian.org.hk/w/Make_Debian_support_Chinese_(eng) due to many request. Forget every thing below and go to read the updated version.

BTW, I think it is better to keep it in english.

1. Install the following packages:

   • xcin - Chinese input system
   • xfonts-intl-chinese - fonts needed by xcin
   • ttf-arphic-bkai00mp - Arphic free traditional chinese KaitiM fonts
   • ttf-arphic-bsmi00lp - Arphic free traditional chinese Mingti2L fonts
   • ttf-arphic-gkai00mp - Arphic free simplified chinese KaitiM fonts
   • ttf-arphic-gbsn00lp - Arphic free simplified chinese SungtiL fonts

2. Add the following line in /etc/locale.gen (You can check /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED

   for a list of supported locales):

   en_US ISO-8859-1
   zh_TW BIG5
   zh_CN GB2312
   

   Then run "locale-gen".

   # locale-gen
   Generating locales...
     en_US.ISO-8859-1... done
     zh_CN.GB2312... doen
     zh_TW.BIG5... done
   Generation complete.
   #
   

   Confirm the following locale name is showed after typing "locale -a":

   C
   POSIX
   en_US
   en_US.iso88591
   zh_CN
   zh_CN.gb2312
   zh_TW
   zh_TW.big5
   
   

3. In /etc/X11/Xsession.d, create a new file named "95xim" with following content:

   case "$LANG" in
   zh_TW)
       /usr/bin/xcin &
       XMODIFIERS="@im=xcin-zh_TW"
       ;;
   zh_TW.Big5)
       /usr/bin/xcin &
       XMODIFIERS="@im=xcin"
       ;;
   esac
   
   
   export XMODIFIERS
   

4. Select language as "Chinese(.....)" with your gdm and login your account. If you use other X Display manager (i.e. xdm or kde) which don't allow you to select language, You may need to add the following line at the beginning of "/etc/X11/Xsession.d/95xim":

   export LANG=zh_TW.Big5
   

   If you are using "startx" to start X Window, type "export LANG=zh_TW.Big5" before "startx".

Notice: I don't mention about Microsoft Mingliu fonts, firefly patch or any other useful things because I want to keep this mini-howto simple and involve only official debian packages and planned to have a package to handle all the above steps later.

Notice: An updated chinese version was posted in
http://wiki.debian.org.hk/w/Make_Debian_support_Chinese. An english version was also created in http://wiki.debian.org.hk/w/Make_Debian_support_Chinese_(eng) due to many request. Forget every thing in this article and go to read the updated version.