Installing chinese language input in kubuntu

[Falc7]

How do i set up other languages correctly?
I would like to be able to type chinese, with ubuntu i had to install scim and it all worked very well, but i am having some trouble now. I went to system settings-> regional and language. There i installed chinese simplified. Now how do i enter pingyin?

edit: i've noticed, quite frustratingly, that some of my system information is in chinese and some of it is in english :/

[Zorael]

Re: Installing chinese language input in kubuntu

To my knowledge, you can't set up custom input methods via System Settings. I never really understood why KDE won't embrace UIM or IBus (or SCIM, though it's supposedly deadish upstream), but that's life.

If you want to install SCIM, you'll have to do it manually. Find and install the scim and all scim-bridge packages (scim-bridge-agent, scim-bridge-client-gtk, scim-bridge-client-qt4, scim-bridge-client-qt), along with the language module of your choice. I don't know what you want for Chinese input; scim-pinyin perhaps?

This package provides smart pinyin IM engine for SCIM. It includes the plugin modules and the data files. With this module you can use the smart pinyin input method for Chinese.

I wouldn't suggest you use the KDE3 frontend Skim as it will load Qt3 stuff (that nothing uses anymore) into memory. Assuming you're using any GTK apps (Firefox?), I think you're better off with the normal GTK SCIM. No input methods seem to be offering Qt4 panels and setup tools currently.

Installation in one line;

$ sudo aptitude install scim ~nscim-bridge scim-pinyin

To set SCIM as the default input method for your user, do the following and select scim-bridge in the list. Prepend it with sudo to make it a system-wide setting.

$ im-switch -l

Then open up /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim-bridge in a text editor, and paste the following content into it. (Make a backup of it if you wish.)

XIM=SCIM
XIM_PROGRAM=/usr/bin/scim
XIM_ARGS="-d"
XIM_PROGRAM_SETS_ITSELF_AS_DAEMON=yes

if [ -e /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/*/immodules/im-scim-bridge.so ]; then
  GTK_IM_MODULE=scim-bridge
elif [ -e /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/*/immodules/im-scim.so ]; then
  GTK_IM_MODULE=scim
else
  GTK_IM_MODULE=xim
fi
if [ -e /usr/lib/qt3/plugins/inputmethods/im-scim-bridge.so ] || [ -e /usr/lib/qt4/plugins/inputmethods/im-scim-bridge.so ]; then
  QT_IM_MODULE=scim-bridge
elif [ -e /usr/lib/qt3/plugins/inputmethods/libqscim.so ]; then
  QT_IM_MODULE=scim
else
  QT_IM_MODULE=xim
fi

DEPENDS="scim-bridge-client-gtk | scim-bridge-client-qt | scim-bridge-client-qt4 | scim-gtk2-immodule | scim-qtimm"[/quote]

One thing you will notice is that the GTK panel will look like dirt, as it's started automatically upon login before the QtCurve "theming" has had a chance to apply. It'll look nice if you close it and reopen it, but that's a dirty hack. I don't really know how to work around this one yet.
[code]$ killall scim-panel-gtk && scim-panel-gtk &

As mentioned earlier, besides SCIM there's also UIM and IBus. Both are installed in the same way, except for the last bit about changing the /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim-bridge file, which I've only ever had to do with SCIM. I'm using UIM with Anthy for Japanese input at the moment, and it works great.[/code]