How to use Devanagari on openSUSE 11.1?

[homoludens1000]

Sorry but I need help for a newbie on how to use Devanagari on openSUSE 11.1. (I've found bits and pieces of explanations on the web, but would appreciate a comprehensive guide ... )

(1) What fonts do I have to install?
(Are they in the repositories?)

(2) What is the best way to input Devanagari?
(Enabling Indic languages via the KDE regional setting?)

(3) Does anyone have experiences with SCIM/SKIM?
(I'm currently using SKIM for inputting Japanese, Chinese, and Latin characters with diacritics, so if possible would like to stick to SKIM for Devanagari too.)

(4) How to get Devanagari running in Konqueror?
(and/or KDE applications in general? Currently, I'm only getting little cubes when visiting Hindi websites, see

.

(5) What is the problem with Firefox?
(There is some kind of Devanagari display, but obviously faulty, see:

.
I've found some references that there is something wrong with Firefox's text rendering engine and that one ought to install a Pango-based version of Firefox; at the same time, however, FF3+ is supposed to include Pango support by default, so I'm at a loss ... )

Thanks for your help!

--------------------------
My system environment:

** HARDWARE **
Laptop: Panasonic Let's Note CF-Y2

** SOFTWARE **

OS: Linux 2.6.27.23-0.1-pae i686
System: openSUSE 11.1 (i586)
KDE: 4.2.4 (KDE 4.2.4) "release 2"

Firefox: 3.0.11
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060200 SUSE/3.0.11-0.1.1

SKIM 1.4.5 (compiled with libscim 1.4.7, using KDE 3.5.10 "release 21.9 openSUSE)

[hcvv]

First install indic-fonts. It is in the normal OSS repo, so I wander why you did not find this.

Then look which of you questions is still unanswered. E.g. all the applications (inclusing Konqueror) must now show visible Devanagri instead of "little cubes".

[homoludens1000]

Henk, thanks for the post. Sorry, I was looking for "Devanagari" and "Hindi" fonts in the repositories, didn't occur to me to try "Indic".
I've installed the font set, and the Devanagari display works fine now (also in FF and Konqueror).

I've activated Hindi input in SCIM, but apparently there is only one IM (hi-itrans), which I don't like that much.
Any idea what kind of SCIM/SKIM modules I'd have to install in order to get others (such as Remington, phonetic, or inscript -- they should be available somehow, I've seen them mentioned, see e.g. Post #2 in this Ubuntu thread: Sanskrit input (Devanagari and transliteration) - Ubuntu Forums).

Currently, I've installed the following SCIM modules:

S | Name            | Type    | Version               | Arch | Repository       
--+-----------------+---------+-----------------------+------+------------------
i | mlterm-scim     | package | 2.9.3.20071112-134.59 | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | scim            | package | 1.4.7-166.1           | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | scim-anthy      | package | 1.2.4-88.132          | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | scim-bridge     | package | 0.4.15-13.3           | i586 | (System Packages)
i | scim-bridge-gtk | package | 0.4.15-13.3           | i586 | (System Packages)
i | scim-bridge-qt  | package | 0.4.15-13.3           | i586 | (System Packages)
i | scim-canna      | package | 1.0.0-129.144         | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | scim-input-pad  | package | 0.1.1-163.142         | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | scim-m17n       | package | 0.2.2-94.157          | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | scim-qtimm      | package | 0.9.4-269.33          | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | scim-skk        | package | 0.5.2-156.158         | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | scim-tomoe      | package | 0.6.0-1.58            | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | scim-uim        | package | 0.2.0-54.197          | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | skim            | package | 1.4.5-259.10          | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | skim-scim-anthy | package | 1.2.2-1.147           | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | skim-scim-canna | package | 1.0.0-1.146           | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | skim-scim-skk   | package | 0.5.2.1-50.146        | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss

PS:
I've seen references to a package "m17n-db-hindi". How can I get this for openSUSE?

[homoludens1000]

OK, I found the other input methods for Hindi.

I think they are included in one of the two following packages (probably the latter):

i | scim-tables            | package | 0.5.8-1.13              | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss
i | scim-tables-additional | package | 0.5.8-1.13              | i586 | openSUSE-11.1-Oss

[hcvv]

Nice you found it.

Glad I could help you on the font side. In fact I have another font providing Devanagri (Lucida Sans), but I can not find out at the moment wich package it belongs to.

On the input side I still use the "input special character" function of OO and click at all individual characters, but I do not need Devanagri very much. I will now go and see what the SCIM/SKIM is you are talking about. Thanks for mentioning this.

[homoludens1000]

Yes, you should check out Scim/Skim! I've found it a fantastic platform for inputing different languages (mainly Japanese and Chinese, but it also has a very convenient input mode for Latin characters with diacritics (German umlauts etc), which saves you the trouble of having to use different keyboard layouts.

Actually, the Wikipedia entry on Scim has all the relevant information, I think: Smart Common Input Method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Cheers

[hcvv]

Thanks again. I found that Wikipedia already. Wikipedia contains an awfull lot of information when you start studying these things IMHO.

I have no real problem entering umläute and the like (in dutch also several of these diacriticals are used) using Shift-RightCtrl as a key that makes then pre-typing of one of these diacriticals possible. A bit tedious, but I am already used to it. Nevertheless I will try this SCIM. One can always learn something new.