IN fact the split between windows and Linux in my environment in the server room is close to 50-50. On desktops on the administrative side its windows 95%, OS X 4.5%, linux at somewhere ca. .5%

Documentation and translation has been the major problems.

Even in Windows software there are programs that are very badly translated

Chris Weig
“While today’s translations for the widely spoken languages are almost complete, they are often enough horrible.”
So you would be like me they have been improved since 2008 from being very splotchy but still need work in places. I do German on my system on my system from time to time so yes looking in the translation files do happen with me.

Chris Weig when it comes to all reference materials there is more in English than most other Languages this include using MS Windows, Unix or anything else.

The computer world in general in documentation is bias to English. Next greatest is Spanish. That does not really help you when you want Japanese or German. German has improved a lot with the government usage there. Same is happening with the Japanese as there government usage increases also the usage in the stock exchange there helped.

Chris Weig sometimes it pays to step back a little bit at look computer industry as a whole. Apple and Microsoft are very much a bed of roses in Japanese or German. Lot of thorns.

It does not matter what way you go bad translations will be out to draw blood. Most fun with one german app was someone translating mixed up Ok and Cancel and that was under Windows. Under apple saw a case of confirm some how getting translated to a german swear word. Problem was this was a program for school grades 1 to 4. So yes I have seen some real shockers of translation errors on all platforms. Some put teachers in really hard locations.

Of course I am not saying Linux cannot do better. We have to be very careful to not over criticise Linux for something that is a common IT problem.

The common IT problem of translations I don’t know how to really fix fully.

Chris Weig interest thing I have notice. Improvements in translations to particular languages appear to align with government usage of the OS. This does not matter if it Linux, OS X, Windows or some other OS we have never heard of. If the governments of the people using that Language is using it the translations are between decent and good for those usages.

Don’t have enough data yet to 100 percent confirm that.

According to Statcounter, Japan has taken FLOSS browsers but not FLOSS OS, so language barrier is not absolute.

No, it wasn’t. Compared to 1996 — when I used Canna on SuSE — it was a piece of cake.

“Essentially, if you want to use Linux in Japan, you need to learn English”

This quote is not about input but about help like man files not being translated into Japanese. From 2008 to now lot more of the common documentation is available in Japanese.

Here’s a news flash: that hasn’t really changed. While today’s translations for the widely spoken languages are almost complete, they are often enough horrible. In my opinion, you are still better off with Linux today if you simply switch your whole desktop to English. English is still the lingua franca of Linux. There are more websites, tutorials, books etc. available in English than in any other language. If you start developing FLOSS you’ll most likely do it in English. LibreOffice received a huge boost after the source code comments had been translated from German to English.

Amen. It took me a month of work to design and to install a complete system for a school running GNU/Linux but only minutes per day to reset a few passwords and to verify that everything continued to run. Then I did my day-job. Break-even for the project was Day One because it cost less than using that other OS. After that we had superior performance and much easier administration. Many quote 50-80% reduction in manpower required to maintain the system with GNU/Linux. I think it’s larger than that because so much work is done by the distro and the package manager leaving very little except interactions with users. The installation I did has had exactly two hardware glitches since Day One and very few software problems except upgrading to the next release in six years for 153 seats and six servers. The world of business is moving to thin clients pretty rapidly and GNU/Linux has no problem running a thin clent because the apps are on the server. Thin client = no lock-in.

That’s of no account to OEMs and system administrators. They do a prototype and copy it.

“Essentially, if you want to use Linux in Japan, you need to learn English”
This quote is not about input but about help like man files not being translated into Japanese. From 2008 to now lot more of the common documentation is available in Japanese.

The major distrobutions addressing this documentation short have been turbolinux that is a distribution that is quite unique to Japanese normally not found out side there. Ubuntu and Mandriva.

Chris Weig interesting right that japanese have there own unique distribution that is mostly japanese only.

Taiwan is a head on localisation. So they have more time for other things.

There have been some quite interesting turbolinux products made that were only sold in japanese no english support on them out box.

Read IBM support contract some time. They are quality of service contracts. Meaning if it don’t run smoothly IBM is the one paying out.

Bogus idea again Tar. Linux on average requires less maintenance than windows. Setting the thing up the first time correctly can be the prick from hell at times. IBM basically charges for the setup then basically insurance that it runs correctly with IBM planning to have to do very few hours and pocket the insurance money.

Best way to make money is being paid for doing nothing Tar. Yes insurance.

Really you have the IBM model wrong Tar.

You can already stop there, Mr. Pogson. Please investigate Japan’s (or rather Tokyo’s) Linux user groups in detail. Most are staffed for the greater part by non-Japanese who live in Japan.

Just one more thing …

In 2009, it was realized that support of the language was wanting. ” Essentially, if you want to use Linux in Japan, you need to learn English”. see Linux in Japan? By 2011, typing and displaying Japanese was no problem in Ubuntu 11.04.

OMG! So much misinformation on a Linux blog. No, in 2009 you were perfectly able to write in Japanese on Linux. Here is かんな, one of the oldest IMEs for Linux. It was already there in Debian 1.1:

http://www.nec.co.jp/canna/