The history of Indic localization of Linux (GNU/Linux …) may never be written down with the amount of detail that it deserves. Especially to ensure that the significant events are well recorded.
Lest we forget, with the help of sayamindu and karunakar I came across the following dates:
- IndLinux Hindi v0.37 (Milan) released on October 2003. It was a LiveCD that allowed you to check out a localized GNU/Linux desktop environment, input and display
- The AnkurBangla LiveCD was also released somewhat later that same year
- From May 2004 onwards, the Utkarsh Project released and maintained Gujarati Localizations
- In November 2004, Fedora Core 3 shipped and you could choose to boot into an Indic locale and get your work done. You can also check this page for the RHEL release that happened.
- In 2006, the IndLinux project released Rangoli
- In June 2007, Debian Etch was released with an installer localized in Indic languages (Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Malayalam, Nepali, Punjabi, Tamil). As a consequence, Debian (and Ubuntu) users may experience a full Indic-localized system from scratch.
So, before you go and listen to folks talk about the “first Indian language GNU/Linux Operating System” on the media channels, keep these dates in mind.
Update: This does not in any way claim to be the only dates that are relevant. So, if you do recall the dates of releases from other groups working on Indic L10n on Linux, please feel free to leave them in comments with URLs if possible.
The post is brought to you by lekhonee-gnome v0.9
Ha ha! All these moronic claims made by various Indian Govt. bodies are ridiculous.
Here’s a proposal, from the “deb-junkies” side of the free software world…:-)
June 2007: Debian etch is released, with an installer localized in Indic languages (Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Malayalam, Nepali, Punjabi, Tamil). As a consequence, Debian (and Ubuntu) users may experience a full Indic-localized system from scratch.
February 2009: Debian lenny is released, adding 1 more supported language (Marathi)
Thanks Kartik. The data provided by both of you is relevant and helps in the timeline.