How to setup Linux XTerm with Persian support
Following are the instructions for getting Linux XTerm work with Persian Unicode. Two screenshots are available for a sonnet of Hafez (15KB) and First Soore of Quran (9 KB). Please note that these are not for novice Linux users.
1 The font
Download 10x20.bdf.bz2. Run:
bunzip2 10x20.bdf.gz
bdftopcf 10x20.bdf > 10x20.pcf
gzip -9 10x20.pcf
su
mv -b 10x20.pcf.gz /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc
cd /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc
Add the following line to 'fonts.alias':
10x20U -Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--20-200-75-75-C-100-ISO10646-1
Continue:
mkfontdir
xset fp rehash
To test the font, run:
xfd -fn 10x20U
2 The Terminal
Get xterm-156.tar.bz2 and xterm-bidi-27.diff.bz2. Run:
bzip2 -cd xterm-156.tar.bz | tar xvf -
cd xterm-156
bzcat ../xterm-bidi-27.diff.bz2 | patch -p1
./configure --enable-wide-chars
make
./xterm -u8 -bi -fn 10x20U
To test your installation, download hafez.utf8 and hamd.utf8 and run:
cat hafez.utf8
cat hamd.utf8
You should be able to see the first Sonnet of Hafez (alaa yaa ayyohas-saaghi) and the first Soore of Quran (hamd).
Copyright
© 2001 The FarsiWeb Project Group, Computing Center, Sharif University
of Technology.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any
medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Problems? contact the FarsiWeb Project Group at FWPG@sharif.edu.