2. Introduction

Tamil is a member of the Dravidian languages. Its origin is in southern India and the language is written with non-Roman alphabets. So there is a need for special fonts, encoding, keyboard layout and drivers, besides localization, including currency, date format, etc. This document will give a complete overview of setting up and working in the Tamil Linux environment. There are several pieces of information and tools available for Linux in Tamil; this how-to will serve as a meta-index to all the scattered resources.

A word before you enter - most of the fonts, tools, RPMs and documents are being gathered under one site. So try the resources at http://tamil.homelinux.org before you embark on treasure-hunting.