[ Thanks to Majun
(Arthur Ma) for this announcement. ]
Unicon V3.0 Release
14/11/2000, TurboLinux, Beijing.
UNICON 3.0 has been released by TurboLinux, Beijing. In addition to
Chinese language support this version can display on the Linux console
double-byte character sets for many additional Asian languages. Font
management and virtual console support has also been enhanced. This
version maintains compatibility with Linux console applications and
includes improvements in memory efficiency and stability.
The new version has the following highlights:
1. The following encodings can be displayed:
Big5, GB, GBK, JIS, KSCM.
2. Console Application Compatibility
UNICON modifies the kernel as little as possible, but still needs to
for display and input. It can support console virtual terminals, GPM
mouse, keyboard and almost all video devices using the kernel frame
buffer. It is difficutl for the to tell the difference between a UNICON
console tty and the standard Linux TTY. Applications don't require any
modification. UNICON also can display IBM table characters mixed with
double byte language encodings.
3. Every console virtual terminal has independent state and can display
any font, input method, etc. One virtual terminal can display Chinese
and another can display Japanese at the same time.
4. Modular structure easily extended
The UNICON application level could be ported to other UNIX systems.
There are three logical parts to UNICON: kernel patch, device driver,
user level input C/S. To port the system to a new machine, most work
is in the device driver and kernel patch. User parts do not need
modification.
5. provide API & General Input method interface
we provide the IMM interface for application programmer. this means the
two aspects:
1). IMM modules interface
when user want to add special IMM into the system, he just write
a modules and reconfigure the system.
2). Client / Server interface
when user want to change the structure, he need to modify this
and does not change other.
6. support multiple language font
Unicon support multiple fonts in kernel and provide a dynamic switch
based on this.
7. Install & configration script support & document
8. provide the share input method for Xfree86
9. provide hotkey switch for language, fonts, IMM
10. flexible configuration file support.
User can config the system by modifying the configure file
We have implemented UNICON all according to the GPL (GNU Public License).
From the begining of the UNICON, we have followed the GPL and have released
all the source code and documentation. UNICON has been included in all
TurboLinux Chinese releases. It is used heavily in China where console
applications are relied on for many tasks. We hope the UNICON project
will increase the use of Linux in China and the rest of Asia. As Linux
I18N support evolves so too will UNICON.
Download from:
ftp://ftp.turbolinux.com.cn/pub/turbolinux/source/unicon/unicon-3.0-release.tar.gz