install Sinhala unicode in Ubuntu Feisty with sayura input system or keyboard

(hopefully these instructions are useful even for those new to linux)

1. Get everything ready
Using synaptic (system->administration->synaptic package manager)
install
language-pack-si-base
scim and scim-dev
dpkg and dpkg-dev
autotools-dev

2. Install sinhala unicode font
download the sinhala unicode font
http://sinhala.sourceforge.net/files/lklug.ttf

open the terminal (applications-accessories-terminal or there is a little icon on top of desktop.). The terminal IS the quickest, easiest, best place to do most of the stuff, and is the ONLY way in some instances. So get used to it!

type the following and press the enter key.
mkdir ~/.fonts

or in synaptic package manager
right click in home directory as it opens or file menu - create new folder and name it
.fonts (period or full stop at the beginning)

open the file manager nautilus ( the home icon on the desktop)
in the menu bar
in view - click on show hidden files.
copy the lklug.ttf file you downloaded into the directory .fonts
in view menu click on show hidden files again to disable what you did first.
click again in show hidden files to disable it.

back in the terminal (more fun!) type:
fc-cache -fv

press the enter key

there will be some output

check that the font is enabled by typing

fc-list :lang=si file

it will tell you something about the file - that means it is installed.

log out and log in again (No need to shutdown).

Go to

http://si.wikipedia.org/

If you can read sinhala on the page, that is it!

copy some of that text and then open the open office wordprocessor and paste the stuff into a new document. From the font list select lklug


3. To get a keyboard installed to type in sinhala...

The Sayura keyboard system from Anuradha Ratnaweera is at
http://www.sayura.net/im/


create a directory called sayura
Now download the scim-sayura-0.3.3.tar.gz ( the o.3.3 will change with time as versions will change) and put it in the above directory
http://www.sayura.net/im/scim-sayura-0.3.3.tar.gz

unpack in terminal (CLI) or file manager(nautilus has to be opened as su - to do this open the terminal and type sudo nautilus - then in nautilus, right click the file and select "extract here")
or in terminal (more fun!)
cd to directory (cd sayura) formed and type
tar -xzvf scim-sayura-0.3.3.tar.gz (some output will be seen)
cd scim-sayura-0.3.3

The following HAS to be done in the terminal in the scim-sayura-0.3.3
.
sudo dpkg-buildpackage -b

the deb package will be made and found in the sayura directory.
install it by opening the terminal and cd sayura and then
sudo dpkg -i scim-sayura_0.3.3-1_i386.deb
(or in synaptic package manager opened as su you can select the file by right clicking ans select open with Gdebi package installer)
check in system-preferences-scim input method setup that sinhala is installed
check in system-administration-language support to see if everything is OK there (in my case as I open it it said there were some files to be installed, and i said OK).

Then shift-space or ctrl-space will bring a little icon on the system tray(right bottom), click on it and you will get a list and you can pick sayura from the "other" list.

shift+space will change between the two languages.