Idea #5932: Only install Help files for Users native Language

167

Written by bgfeldm the 28 Mar 08 at 14:36. Category: System.
Related to: Nothing/Others. Status: New

Description

Under Gutsy the "/usr/share/gnome/help/" directory is 208 MB. For every application there is a help file in many languages. I only need English, someone else may only want Spanish or French. So only install help files for the Users main/native/primary Language.

--With more and more work to create more detailed help files the help file directory is likely to grow quickly above its current 208 MB.

--Under "/usr/share/gnome/help/rhythmbox" if you remove the non english languages you can save 2.9 MB;

Here is a sampling of what I found if you removed the non-english files (I randomly looked at 3 different ones):
/usr/share/gnome/help/rhythmbox 2.9 MB
/usr/share/gnome/help/windows 6.5 MB
/usr/share/gnome/help/about-ubuntu 4.3 MB

--Also since these files are XML files (with a few images), compressing them will greatly reduce the size further. You can use the GZ format which webservers use to reduce bandwidth which the browser auto uncompresses and displays.

I preformed a test by compressing the help directory with gzip "gzip -r --best help" the help directory went from 162.1 MB to 83.6 MB. Thats almost half the size.

Tags: help language

Attachments

No attachments.

Duplicates

[Report a duplicate and merge its votes to this idea]

Comments

fluo wrote on the 28 Mar 08 at 15:43

you can install localepurge, it gets rid of all the docs you have that are not in the language you want

ubuntu_demon wrote on the 28 Mar 08 at 17:24

IMHO you shouldn't recommend people to use localepurge. Because "apt-cache show localepurge" gives :

Description: Automagically remove unnecessary locale data
This is just a simple script to recover diskspace wasted for unneeded locale files and localized man pages. It will automagically be invoked upon completion of any apt installation run.
.
Please note, that this tool is a hack which is *not* integrated with Debian's package management system and therefore is not for the faint of heart. This program interferes with the Debian package management and does provoke strange, but usually harmless, behaviour of programs
related with apt/dpkg like dpkg-repack, debsums, reportbug, etc. Responsibility for its usage and possible breakage of your system therefore lies in the sysadmin's (your) hands.
.
Please definitely do abstain from reporting any such bugs blaming localepurge if you break your system by using it. If you don't know what you are doing and can't handle any resulting breakage on your own then please simply don't use this package.

fluo wrote on the 28 Mar 08 at 19:46

I learnt something, thanks for the info

ld_barthel wrote on the 29 Mar 08 at 02:36

I think this idea is too restrictive. Multi-lingual families need more than a single language. I would be more receptive to allowing the option to install selected languages.

Even so, I can see this working only if separate documentation packages were created for each language.

Since man pages are already compressed, I think that modifying the GNOME help system to use gzipped XML might be a more feasible way to reduce the size of the help system.

_sebastian_ wrote on the 29 Mar 08 at 08:02

Yea why ask which language to install in and then install all language files?
But I think keeping the english version as a backfall option would be great.

PiHalbe wrote on the 29 Mar 08 at 10:28

Maybe have a sort of preferred language list. Keep the help files for language 1 only. If help in language 1 is not available, keep it in language 2 etc.

In most cases it would default to language 1: native language, language 2: English or lang 2: national language and lang 3: English.

And it might be useful to say "keep them in language 1 and 2, or fall back to 3, 4, ...". For the multi language families.

Example: When I move to, say, Sweden, I would like o have both the German and the Swedish docs. If none of them are available, I would like to have the English ones.

This is probably just on the edge of being complicated. :-/

nathan_s wrote on the 30 Mar 08 at 07:55

It seems to me that the language selection screen is for determining the default language. Mushing any new functionality into it would only confuse people.

If anything, this should be included with the options to install different components or not, towards the end of the installation process.

I agree that compressing the help files with gzip (or better yet, LZMA) would be a worth-while enhancement. I would like to see that implemented before the optional inclusion of languages.

vytah wrote on the 30 Mar 08 at 20:24

gzipping is a good idea, but deleting unnecessary localized helppages is not. Imagine you borrow your laptop for e.g. 2 hours for your German friend, so you're installing German Language support. Now the Big Hunt begins - which help files are missing? Which ones of thousands packages would need their DE locales to install?

I tar-gzipped whole /usr/share/gnome/help and got 90MB gzip. So, gzipping won't solve much

Post your comment