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The Indic Fonts HOWTO
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2. Installing the IndiX system

You can obtain the IndiX system from NCST, Mumbai site http://rohini.ncst.ernet.in/indix/. The system is available in its source as well as binary form. This HOWTO covers the installation of the IndiX system using the binary files avaiable for download. At a later stage, I plan to cover the source installation of IndiX on your box, too. You need to download the following files in order to install IndiX sucessfully onto your machine:

gtk.tar.gz
indix.tar.gz

2.1. Installing IndiX

NCST has written Simpm ( Simple Package Manager ) that takes care of the entire installation process on your system. Simpm carries out the following steps for a binary distribution of the IndiX system:

  1. It reads the names of the files within the distribution by essentially running the command tar -tzpPf package.tgz > .package.list
  2. It saves all these files and the file containing the list using the command tar -czpPf .old.package.tgz .package.list `cat .package.list`
  3. Simpm then extracts the files from the package and installs them using tar -xzpPf package.tgz
Should you wish to go back to the old system state for any reason, you can easily do so using tar -xzpPf .old.package.tgz

2.2. Running Simpm

simpm with no arguments/parameters will display its usage. 

  # simpm -i package.tgz [-d savdir/]
does all the above steps, 1 through 3. The 'i' flag indicates install. Successful installation will create savdir/.old.package.tgz. If it finds an existing .old.package.tgz, simpm will not proceed as it means that the IndiX system has already been installed earlier. However, you can force an IndiX install by renaming it to a newpackage. Alternatively, you can uninstall the package and install it again. 

  # simpm -u package.tgz [-d savdir/]
uninstalls the package. Note, however, that this command will work only if it finds a readable .old.package.tgz. Having uninstalled the package, simpm will restore the original files that were overwritten by the package. The .old.package.tgz will be deleted after the uninstallation so that all instances of the previous installation are removed. Simpm maintains a log of all installs and uninstalls in the savdir/simpm.log file.

To install the IndiX system, all you have to do is (pray and do your favourite tribal dance) type in the following commands: 

  # simpm -i /path/to/gtk.tar.gz
  # simpm -i /path/to/indix.tar.gz
and all the necessary files will be backed up, and the IndiX system installed on your machine. Hurrah.

Congratulations, o' most precious one, on having installed IndiX system on your machine. The remainder of this HOWTO will focus on setting up your Linux environment to support Indic fonts and scripts in X.

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Introduction Devanagri Input and Output setup