how do i write chinese using scim?

lemuel · 01-28-2005, 05:41 AM

hello!

i have these programs installed - scim, scim-chinese, scim-tables-zh

ok... so how do I start writing chinese? i read that i'm supposed to load scim and do a ctrl-space, so i did that on oowriter. but i still can't write anything

lemuel · 01-28-2005, 06:35 PM

i did this in ubuntu by the way

JDW · 01-29-2005, 04:37 PM

Kumusta lemuel,

I have never used Ubuntu (a newish Debian-based distro), but I imagine that like most other distros you will have to set the current locale setting so that you can type in Chinese - try the following ->

$ locale // this will list the current locale settings, if you have lots of en_US.UTF-8 (or en_US.utf8 in some distros) then it is default unicode. If not, then try this :-

$ locale -a // this will give you a list of all available locales on your system, look for one like en_US.UTF-8, you want to have a unicode (UTF-8) locale...

then type :-

$ export LANG=en_US.UTF-8 //or whatever unicode locale you want.

ok, then, for Simplified Chinese :-

$ export LC_CTYPE=zh_CN.UTF-8; export XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM; // set the input

and finally :-

$ scim -d // start the SCIM daemon

from the same terminal run your app (such as Kword etc.), and when it has loaded type CTRL + SPACE to bring up the SCIM taskbar and input window - there should be a settings button just next to the clock in KDE as well which you can look at...

hope this helps, ingat!

jdw

lemuel · 01-30-2005, 08:35 PM

yeey!! it finally worked!! salamat!!

so good to know I have kababayans who are skilled in linux.

come visit cebu and i'll treat u somewhere.

JDW · 01-30-2005, 08:47 PM

Hi,

Glad it worked...actually asawa ko ay Pilipina, taga Baguio...

I have Ubuntu from the January edition of Linux Format - is it worth a look?

cheers,

jdw

lemuel · 02-01-2005, 06:50 AM

so you're not a filipino? how come you know tagalog?

Oh man! ubuntu is the best distro ive tried ever since I became a linux addict. (that was about 2 months ago. I'm actually quite new). I've tried Mandrake, Suse, Fedora, Knoppix, Damnsmall, feather, and Mepis. I kept on switching distros cause I couldn't decide which one to settle down with until I tried ubuntu and my days of wandering finally ended.

I think the reason why I like it is that its very simple yet elegant looking. Then, its a very light and unbloated distro. lastly, synaptic rules!! Its a graphical frontend for apt-get so you pretty much have every software within a click of a mouse.

I'm sure you've read the hype about ubuntu. There are quite a few articles and even postings here in this forum bragging about how good ubuntu is. well, you'll never know until you try. so go try it out and tell me what you think.

JDW · 02-01-2005, 04:19 PM

my wife speaks Tagalog/Ilocano at home with her friends so you sorta pick it up...

I'll take your advice and give Ubuntu a try - mind you, I tried Slackware about a month or so ago for the first time, it really impressed me (speed, stability, ease of use etc.) I use it now on the laptop...

jdw

lemuel · 02-01-2005, 07:21 PM

I dunno, I can't compare it with slackware cause i've never tried it. I heard alot of good things about it but also bad things like the installation is hard and its not for newbies. That's why I've been very hesitant to download it. are they true?

denning · 02-23-2005, 01:17 PM

the things they say about hard installation are not true. The only hard thing maybe setting up X, but it just means you need to know about your video card.

It is damn fast. Give it a go.

O sorry, another thing is that you may need to copy over the foreign fonts you need. Slackware didn't come with the necessary chinese fonts so i had to install them myself before i could read chinese.

Does Ubuntu come with foreign fonts and True Type installed?

btw, thanks so much JDW! Followed your instructions and got scim working at long last on Slackware!!! Now i am no longer tied to Mandrake, Centos or Fedora just for the Chinese support!!!

denning · 02-24-2005, 05:17 PM

update for those using slackware. Slackware doesn't have a .bashrc or .cshrc file. To avoid having to type in the export LANG export LC_CTYPE export XMODIFIERS and scim all the time, put these commands in the /etc/profile.d/lang.sh file. It will be automatically run every time you boot up.

JDW · 02-24-2005, 05:28 PM

good tip denning...it is annoying typing commands all the time...another way is to make an alias for "scim" that includes these environment settings plus "scim -d" to run the SCIM daemon, then you can just run it all with "scim" or whatever you want to call it, but you have to save the alias in your home directory somewhere...