How to make translations for the Debian applications

First of all you need to make sure to the application is not translated actually, for example with the requeriment of a extra package, like iceweasel or icedove (firefox and thunderbird), play with apt-cache search for this

After, you need to have the repository deb-src added on your /etc/apt/sources.list, is the same line to the debian repository but starts with deb-src instead of deb, enable it or just add it and run apt-get update

Now, make a directory for do this and download the source code of the application with apt-get source, for example apt-get source gimp

You have the source code now, just search if exist the .po files, is the more known and used system for translations, the command buscar po | egrep ".po$" can help you better

You can make a new .po file with your language now, for do this, copy the template.pot file to yourlang.po. You can use graphical tools for this, you have some, just play with apt-cache search for found the better one for you, for example exist:

• kbabel
• poedit
• pointerize
• potool
• etc...

Before do the translation, It could be a good idea, to contact with the translation group for your lang in Debian to follow all conventions they use. Each translation group has different conventions.

After to do the translation, you can build and install this package on your system and use it directly on your language, very easy:

• dpkg-checkbuilddeps: show you the list of packages to you need to install (dependencias) for build the package
• dpkg-buildpackage: Simply build the package and give you a .deb file ready for install

Note: You need to install dpkg-dev for have this commands

The only thing remaining now is to send you .po file to the Debian maintainer of that application, for example apt-cache show gimp | grep @ shows you its email

If you translated the gui of the application, send the .po file to the upstream too.