Re: Typing on GuixSD in languages other than English

["Luis Felipe López Acevedo" <felipe.lopez@openmailbox.org>]

On 2016-04-03 19:26, Chris Marusich wrote:
> Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> iyzsong@member.fsf.org (宋文武) writes:
>> 
>>> Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> writes:
>>> 
>>>> Hi,
>>>> 
>>>> I'm using GuixSD v0.10.0 with GNOME.  I'd like to be able to type in
>>>> Japanese.  I can already display Japanese text without issue because
>>>> I've installed fonts that contain Japanese characters; however, I 
>>>> cannot
>>>> figure out how to enable Japanese input.
>>>> 
>>>> In the past, I've done this for other GNU/Linux distributions.  I 
>>>> recall
>>>> that the process was a little complicated.  Has anyone set up 
>>>> Japanese
>>>> language (or any other non-English) input for GuixSD?  I'm going to 
>>>> look
>>>> into this regardless, but if someone has already jumped through the
>>>> hoops, I'd love to hear about how you did it.
>>> There're fcitx and ibus as input method frameworks, I think we just 
>>> need
>>> to package anthy, ibus-anthy and fcitx-anthy.
>> 
>> Thanks for confirming that the necessary work hasn't been done yet.
>> Those package names sound familiar.  I'll see if I can get any of them
>> packaged and working!  Thanks.
> 
> The attached patches add anthy and ibus-anthy.  They build OK.  
> However,
> Japanese input is not yet working for me.  In fact, ibus itself does 
> not
> seem to be working at all.
> 
> How can I verify that ibus is working on its own?  I've tried 
> installing
> ibus by itself into my profile.  When I do this, I can run ibus-setup,
> and I see a "Japanese" language input option.  This is true even when
> anthy and ibus-anthy are not installed, which surprised me. I had
> expected to find no Japanese language input options at all in 
> ibus-setup
> when anthy and ibus-anthy are not installed.
> 
> In GNOME, there is no ibus menu visible anywhere on my screen, so it is
> unclear whether ibus is actually working.  When I open Gedit and press
> <Super>+Space, my input method does not seem to change.  According to
> ibus-setup, this hotkey should change my input method.  However, it
> seems like ibus is just not working at all.

FWIW, this is what I do on Debian 8 (with GNOME SHELL):

- Install ibus, ibus-anthy (or ibus-mozc).
- Restart the system.
- Go to *System settings → Region & Language*.
- Add *Japanese (Anthy)* in Input method.

After this, you should see the language icon in the top-right corner of 
the desktop. For example, if your current keyboard layout is English, 
you'll see the *en* language code with a little triangle to the right. 
Click there or use Super+Space to alternate between languages.

Note that a while back, on other distros, you had to start the ibus 
demon manually and use ibus settings to add input methods. These days, 
you don't have to do that any more (at least in my experience, or unless 
you use a different desktop environment).

But I don't know on GuixSD what's required. I hope this helps a bit, 
though.

And thank you very mucho for the patches, I'm going to need Anthy when I 
install GuixSD :)


Best,


-- 
Luis Felipe López Acevedo