not able to type in kannada

Hi,
I am not an expert, but do you have a japanese keyboard? OOo excepts the signals the keyboard sends, so you need to have a japanese keyboard....
try
system > preferences > keyboard
and fiddle around a bit....
remember, i am not an expert, maybe someone else has a better idea...

Hello,
I think, you should try this: Open Synaptic manager: In quick search, type SCIM: Then mark all these for installation.
1] scim. 2]scim brigde agent 3]scim bridge agent qt4 and gtk 4] scim m17-n 5]scim modules-table.
Install all.
Now open scim. [System> Preferences> SCIM input method > IME Engine > Global setup >Expand.
Now you will see-the installed input systems. You now un-check all other languages which are not needed[ Select only Kannada in your case ]. Press OK.
Now you open 'Open Office ' Tools >Options > Open Office. org.writer > Basic fonts [western]= Here yo select the English font. In Basic fonts-CTL ,select Mallige, Hani, Garuda, Kedage or Kinnari and press ' ok.'
Reopen Open Office > click the 'Keyboard' indicator [On the top, near 'date' ]. Select Kannada -kn-itrans and type.
ನಿಮಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಿಗುತ್ತದೆ, ಮೇಲೆ ಫಾಂಟ್ ಯಾವುದೇ ಇರಲಿ. When you want to shift to English again, press keyboard again and select 'English'
 I do not know how to add 'hot key' to toggle between Eng and Kannada.