The Linux Thai HOWTO

1. Introduction

It's about one year that I didn't update this document. There were a lot of movement in Thai computing and using Linux in Thailand. For example, Linux boxes are used as server in many schools in Thailand.

The purpose of this document is to show how to set your Linux to use Thai language. I use Linux RedHat 5.0 as I wrote this document, so directories which I mention in this document may be different from other distribution.

First I would like to talk about Thai standard character set. Thai standard character set is TIS-620. There are also other Thai standard character sets such as ISO-IR-166, CP874, etc. Please see http://www.inet.co.th/cyberclub/trin/thairef/ for further information about Thai standard character set. TIS-620 is 8-bit character set. It has the same range as ISO-8859-1, so we can use apllications that support ISO-8859-1 character set also. Although we can use Thai language with apllications that support ISO-8859-1 character set, but it does not mean those applications support Thai language.

Thai characters are different from English characters. There is a variation of position, normal position, character can be on other character, character can be under other character. There is no space between words. These are some problems in developing Thai supported application.

You can find the lastest version of Thai-HOWTO document from http://www.fedu.uec.ac.jp/ZzzThai/Linux. Your comment is welcome.