Setting up a Chinese Input Editor in Ubuntu

Author: Michael Zheng
Date: February 2006.

Overview

This document describes how to set up a Chinese input editor on ubuntu.

If you have already another Chinese input utility on your system, the following approaches may not work. This will be work on a fresh simplified Chinese Linux system (eg newly install simplified Chinese Linux system) .

To install the popular Chinese input fcitx (free Chinese input toy for Linux, latest stable version 3.1.1) on Ubuntu 5.04, you have three ways to accomplish this task.

Required Knowledge: We assume you know how to create a new file and copy the file from one location to another. If you don't know how to do this, please use man vi  and man cp or other help files to get familiar with these commands.

A. To install Chinese input fcitx through web update

1. Click application program tab and then click root terminal, login to a root terminal

2. Type vi /etc/apt/sources.list and press Enter key to edit the text

Add the following sources to the text:

    deb http://ubuntu.cn99.com/ubuntu/ breezy main restricted universe multiverse 
    deb http://ubuntu.cn99.com/ubuntu/ breezy-updates main restricted universe    multiverse
    deb http://ubuntu.cn99.com/ubuntu/ breezy-security main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://ubuntu.cn99.com/ubuntu/ breezy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://ubuntu.cn99.com/ubuntu-cn/ breezy main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://ubuntu.cn99.com/backports/ breezy-extras main restricted universe multiverse

3. Save the file and exit the edit mode

4. Type apt-get update and press Enter key

5. Type apt-get install fcitx and press Enter key (it may take a while to finish, be patient)

6. After finished, type cd /etc/X11/Xsession.d and press Enter key to get into this directory

7. Create a new file called 95xinput, add the following contents into file:

export XMODIFIERS=@im=fcitx ;
export GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx ;
fcitx

Save the file and exit the edit mode.

8.  Type chmod +755 95xinput and press Enter key

9.  Type reboot and press Enter key to restart the pc

10  Login into X window and open a text editor or openoffice , press ctrl-space to active Chinese input.  You can start to input in Chinese now.

B. Install Chinese input fcitx through pre-build package

1. Go to web site www.fcitx.org

2. Download the file fcitx-3.1.1-bin.tar.bz2

3. Click application program tab and then click root terminal, login root terminal.

4. Type cd /usr to get into /usr directory and copy the above file in /usr directory

5. Type tar jxvf citx-3.1.1-bin.tar.bz2 and press Enter key to extract the file

6. Type cd fcitx-3.1.1-bin and press Enter key and press Enter key to get into newly created directory

7. Type ./fcitx.install and press Enter key to install fcitx

8. After finished, type cd /etc/X11/Xsession.d and press Enter key to change current working directory

9. Create a new file name it as 95xinput, add the following contents into file:

    export XMODIFIERS=@im=fcitx ;
    export GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx ;
    fcitx

10. Save the file and exit the edit mode

11. Type chmod +755 95xinput and press Enter key

12. Type reboot and press Enter key to restart the pc

13. Login into X window and open a text editor or openoffice , press ctrl-space to active Chinese input, you can start to input Chinese now.

C . Install Chinese input fcitx from scratch

1. Go to web site www.fcitx.org

2. Download the file fcitx-3.1.1.tar.bz2

3. Type cd /usr and press Enter key to get into /usr directory and copy the above file in /usr directory

4. Type tar jxvf citx-3.1.1.tar.bz2 and press Enter key to extract the file

5. Type cd fcitx-3.1.1 to get into this newly created directory

6. Type apt-get install bulid-essential and press Enter key

7. Type apt-get install Xlibs-dev and press Enter key

8. Type apt-get install libxft-dev xfsdump gawk and press Enter key

9. Type ./configure and press Enter key

10. Type make and press Enter key to compile

11. Type make install and press Enter key to install fcitx

12. After finished, type cd /etc/X11/Xsession.d and press Enter key to change current working directory. Create a new file name it as 95xinput, add the following contents into file:

   export XMODIFIERS=@im=fcitx ;
   export GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx ;
   fcitx

Save the file and exit the edit mode

13. Type chmod +755 95xinput and press Enter key

14. Type reboot and press Enter key to restart the pc

15. Login into X window and open a text editor or openoffice ,press ctrl-space to active Chinese input, you can start to input Chinese now.

D. Install other Chinese input

If you have a traditional Chinese Linux system and would like to install other Chinese input like scim, you can do so through approach A.  You only need to change a few places.

In step 6 , you change fcitx to scim.

In step 8, you change all fcitx to scim

and the rest will be the same.

Although here we use stable version of fcitx as a sample, you can always use approach C to download and compile the latest version at any time you like. Good luck and enjoy the Linux!