configuration problems of "scim" in Slackware 12
 

Have been trapped in a nightmare trying to get "scim" (Smart Common Input Method platform) up in Slackware 12. After loading m17n libraries/databases, UIM, scim-m17n, scim-uim, scim-tables, etc. I load scim itself. Locales are set to "en_US.UTF-8" with "export" to xim. I try to install the KDE frontend "SKIM", but the configure cannot even find scim even though I try "prefixing" it to /usr/local/bin where SCIM is located.

Launching SCIM (scim -d) gives me an unresponsive icon in my tray. No menu on left click. The "setup" will not allow any entries in the "ON" or "OFF" windows. I can see various icons for the scripts I want to enable (Tibetan and Simplified Chinese). The listed toggle (Control+Shift) enables absolutely nothing. When one cannot get even Simplified Chinese to fire, there is a major glitch.

It is extremely frustrating to be this close but no cigar. I got scim working like a champ on a SuSE 10.3 machine, but hate to abandon Slack cause of my own ineptness.

Any other Slackers using "scim" or "skim" that can tell me where to go from here??

I do not use/know scim but did you already tried some third party packages if there is eventually a problem with your own build ?
I've found one build of 1.4.7 version on Slacky: Scim

Thanks for the reply, dunric. and the link.

I uninstalled the scim that I had loaded and tried the .tgz package. It is worse. Besides the usual non-performance issues, I now can no longer see the "global" choices for different languages (you enable the ones you want, and there are now none listed).

Will have to get busy an un-install everything and try again. Am almost certain my problems lie in some area of permissions or the app installing to areas of the tree that Slackware or KDE are not co-ordinating with.

Oops, I may have missed something. They set up a Slackbuild, too. I will attempt that before scrubbing

I think I am dead meat. Can only get as far as an unresponsive typwriter-looking icon in my tray. Chased down an elusive "qt input" module only to be told it needs a patch to work properly. The patch is some kind of ".diff" file and the script directions seemed strange to me. "cd include/" means what??

Does anybody here use Scim, SKim, or any foreign language imput modules in Slackware12??

I use fcitx instead of scim to input simplified chinese.
I just download the fcitx from offical website and use src2pkg to generate the tgz file and install it.
It works fine.

If you want to input simplified chinese, i suggest you try fcitx first.
Fcitx is more simple.

Thanks, zhoun, for the suggestion. This whole thing would not be so frustrating if I was not looking at a computer (SuSE 10.3) where everything (English, Chinese, and Tibetan) is running flawlessly.

your use of "src2pkg" intrigues me though. I am wondering about Slackware's "rpm2pkg". My next plan is to sneak into SuSE10.3 repositories and learn what versions are installed. I can take the "rpm's", convert to ".tgz" and try re-installing the packages. You've given me a direction to travel.

Some thoughts
 

Hello Harry.

I'm somewhat stumped with the SCIM/XIM thing myself. Particularly, using LyX I could not compose characters. I have the impression, distilling information from several mails I read, that there is a timing condition with SCIM, something to so with the setting of XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM too late, but I haven't been able to confirm that (too little time).

Anyway, things started to look generally better here, when I defined

QT_IM_MODULE=xim
GTK_IM_MODEULE=xim

though that didn't stop the composing problem in LyX. Just a couple of
days ago, I detected that unsetting XMODIFIERS, composing started working
in LyX (weird, in other - non Qt - programs composing never failed).
Mind, in KDE, built around Qt more heavily than Gnome, things are probably worse.

unset XMODIFIERS

I'm still thinking SCIM is not initialized correctly, it obviously shouldn't cause these problems.

John

Well, Johncc330, you are more configured than I!! All I can get to (even using a Slackbuild) is the "setup" window where inputs for turn on turn off will not enter. Therefore, I really cannot turn the thing on, as far as I know.

Am running the 2.6.21.5 kernel. I access scim setup via the command line (though scim setup does appear in the KDE menu).

-root@Slack_Box:~# scim -d
-Smart Common Input Method 1.4.7

-Launching a SCIM daemon with Socket FrontEnd...
-Loading simple Config module ...
-Creating backend ...
-Loading socket FrontEnd module ...
-Starting SCIM as daemon ...
-Launching a SCIM process with x11...
-Loading socket Config module ...
-Creating backend ...
-Loading x11 FrontEnd module ...
-GTK Panel of SCIM 1.4.7

-Starting SCIM as daemon ...
-SCIM has been successfully launched.

For kicks, I "unset XMODIFIERS", reset the GTK and QT immodules, but no change.

By themselves, the Lyx, Scribus, and Inkscape apps I installed work flawlessly. Do you have the same kernel?? Do you have "skim" also installed?? Skim refuses to configure with the error that it cannot find scim. I have scim-pinyin and scim m17n (with all m17n lib/db/doc/etc) installed and have been able to find the languages (and icons) in the scim-setup UI.

Methinks the development team favors Ubuntu and Gnome. I don't know any Slackers that play with language input modules.

If I get this going, I may be finding you again cause I intend to use Lyx.

BTW, John, you should do "qtconfig", hit Interface tab, XIM Input Style should be set at "over the spot" (if you haven't been given this tip already)

I've got scim running ever since.

Assuming, everything went ok with installing and ldconfig'uring all the base libs you need, there's pretty much just the enviroment left to be set. For me, it's just installing scim, then anthy and then scim-anthy and scim-pinyin.

I start scim with this environment from my .i18n which is sourced from my
.bashrc - I use scim with Gnome and/or with fvwm, usally.

export LC_CTYPE="de_DE.utf-8"
export LC_COLLATE="de_DE.utf-8"
export LANG=en_US.utf-8
export LC_PAPER="de_DE.utf-8"
export XMODIFIERS="@im=SCIM"
export XIM_PROGRAM="scim -d"
export GTK_IM_MODULE=scim

I don't even start scim -d separately; it starts itself as soon as the usual shortcut trigger is pressed.

I also added the gtk-immodules to the config-file in /etc/gtk-2.0 (gtk-query-immodules) and edited the line

"/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules/im-xim.so"
"xim" "X Input Method" "gtk20" "/usr/share/locale" "ko:ja:th:zh:en:de"

to react on "en" and "de" additionally. (I really don't get it why "internationalization" always means "nationalization"...;)

You should end up with something like this (gvim with scim-pinyin):

http://frollein-schmidt.de/scim.jpg

That is somewhat encouraging, Su-Shee. I think the app defaults to the Gnome way of doing things. It appears that I have borked my system somehow cause Firefox (even re-installed) will not launch. Will be re-installing today!! Ugh!

FWIW, I think the entire fiasco is related to default install scripts that are incompatible with Slackware tree and improperly set permissions. I am too much a newB to understand all the kinks, but I have learned a lot about Linux package management in the process. I read where "just ./configure && make && make install" will work, but I have had to rely on SlackBuilds. Will pay more attention to the SlackBuild scripts in the future.

I've never used scim with packages; it's just a 5 minute thing to compile all the stuff I need.

I was pleasently surprised how well I got Unicode/UTF-8 and scim up and running two years ago and I didn't change much configuration ever since.

[SOLVED THE PROBLEM] configuring scim in Slackware 12
 

I got scim working with the assistance of Alien Bob.

The "scim -d" launch command should be inserted ahead of "startkde" in the /var/X11R6/xinit/xinitrc. In other words scim seems to need a head start on KDE. The repair is quick and dirty, so Alien Bob is making some suggestions to keep settings for any of my future installs.

A tip of the hat to Alien Bob. He seems to be getting on top of the foreign language input stuff, so if you slackers are wanting to get configured to enable use of foreign language input engines, you may get what you need at: http://www.slackware.com/~alien/sas/

Thanks Su-Shee for your posts.

I have now actually got scim working - the reasons I had failed previously was because of little details in the .bashrc file that you kindly posted - I had quotes missing and lowercase when it should have been uppercase, xim instead of scim etc...

But then firefox (2.0.0.14) wouldn't start - it crashed with a segmentation error - so, in order to post here, I had to disable everything and comment out the .bashrc entries.

Despite that, I notice that scim-bridge, scim-launcher, scim-helper-manager and scim-panel-gtk are running.

I have no idea where they are getting started. I can't use scim now but I can use firefox.

Can anyone help me out? Why does Firefox crash with scim?