japanese input in plasma 5.8 kde

English Applications
#1

I’m trying to make japanese text (kana/kanji) text input working in plasma 5.8 kde on LEAP 42.2.

I changed language to Japanese and then to English. I installed dbus mozc and anthy. I configured ibus and started the dameon. I have ibus besides the layout panel in task manager. I have added mozc and anthy inputs to ibus and I can select them but when I type in apps (i tried kwrite and libre office writer) there is no kana input. If I switch keyboard layout to Russian in system preferences I can type in cyrillic. Ibus doesn’t switch to Russian if I select Russian phonetic input in ibus.

I tried also installing and uninstalling plasma-addons-kimpanel

What I want is to get romaji > hiragana > conversion to kanji input working.

Just to check I also installed Centos 7 VM in KVM. In Gnome Classic session I can select japanese kana kanji in system input and it works. In KDE desktop session it also doesn’t work. (Centos uses KDE 4).

I’m willing to change distro to get this working though I really really like Suse. I’d rather not change desktop environment though since I prefer KDE and it seems in other distros this is also not working out of box on KDE.

zypper search ibus | grep 'i |'
i | ibus                            | Intelligent Input Bus for Linux OS                                  | package    
i | ibus-anthy                      | The Anthy engine for IBus input platform                            | package    
i | ibus-branding-openSUSE-KDE      | openSUSE branding for KDE                                           | package    
i | ibus-gtk                        | IBus im module for gtk2                                             | package    
i | ibus-gtk-32bit                  | IBus im module for gtk2                                             | package    
i | ibus-gtk3                       | IBus im module for gtk3                                             | package    
i | ibus-lang                       | Languages for package ibus                                          | package    
i | ibus-m17n                       | The M17N engine for IBus platform                                   | package    
i | ibus-mozc                       | The Mozc engine for IBus                                            | package    
i | ibus-mozc-candidate-window      | An optional candidate window for ibus-mozc                          | package    
i | ibus-qt                         | Qt IBus library and Qt input method plugin                          | package    
i | ibus-skk                        | Japanese SKK input method for ibus                                  | package    
i | ibus-table                      | The Table engine for IBus platform                                  | package    
i | ibus-table-rustrad              | Rustrad input method for IBus framework                             | package    
i | ibus-table-translit             | Translit input method for IBus framework                            | package    
i | libibus-1_0-5                   | IBus libraries                                                      | package    
i | libibus-1_0-5-32bit             | IBus libraries                                                      | package    
i | libusb-0_1-4                    | libusb-1.0 Compatibility Library for libusb-0.1                     | package    
i | libusb-1_0-0                    | USB Library                                                         | package    
i | libusbmuxd4                     | A client library to multiplex connections from and to iOS devices   | package    
i | libusbredirhost1                | A protocol for redirection USB traffic                              | package    
i | libusbredirparser1              | A protocol for redirection USB traffic                              | package    
i | libustr-1_0-1                   | String library, very low memory overhead, simple to import          | package    
i | typelib-1_0-IBus-1_0            | IBus libraries -- Introspection bindings                            | package    


zypper search anthy | grep 'i |'
i | anthy            | Kana-Kanji Conversion Engine                           | package
i | fcitx-anthy      | Japanese Anthy IME Wrapper for Fcitx                   | package
i | ibus-anthy       | The Anthy engine for IBus input platform               | package

zypper search mozc | grep 'i |'
i | fcitx-mozc                 | The Mozc backend for Fcitx                                  | package
i | ibus-mozc                  | The Mozc engine for IBus                                    | package
i | ibus-mozc-candidate-window | An optional candidate window for ibus-mozc                  | package
i | mozc                       | Mozc - Japanese Input Method for Chromium OS, Mac and Linux | package
i | mozc-gui-tools             | GUI tools for mozc                                          | package

zypper search fcitx | grep 'i |'
i | fcitx                          | Flexible Context-aware Input Tool with eXtension                               | package   
i | fcitx-anthy                    | Japanese Anthy IME Wrapper for Fcitx                                           | package   
i | fcitx-branding-openSUSE        | openSUSE default Skins for Fcitx                                               | package   
i | fcitx-config-gtk3              | GTK GUI Config tool for FCITX                                                  | package   
i | fcitx-gtk2                     | Gtk2 IM module for fcitx                                                       | package   
i | fcitx-gtk3                     | Gtk3 IM module for fcitx                                                       | package   
i | fcitx-kkc                      | Japanese KKC IME Wrapper for Fcitx                                             | package   
i | fcitx-mozc                     | The Mozc backend for Fcitx                                                     | package   
i | fcitx-pinyin                   | Chinese Pinyin engine for fcitx                                                | package   
i | fcitx-qt4                      | Qt4 IM module for fcitx                                                        | package   
i | fcitx-qt5                      | Fcitx QT5 Input Context                                                        | package   
i | fcitx-table                    | Table engine for fcitx                                                         | package   
i | fcitx-table-cn-cantonese       | Standard Guongdonkwa Penkyampji table for Fcitx                                | package   
i | fcitx-table-extra-lang         | Languages for package fcitx-table-extra                                        | package   
i | fcitx-table-other              | A fork of ibus-table-others for Fcitx                                          | package   
i | fcitx-table-tools              | Fcitx tools to make tables                                                     | package   
i | kf5-kcm-fcitx                  | KF5 control module for Fcitx                                                   | package   
i | kf5-kcm-fcitx-icons            | Keyboard icons for kf5-kcm-fcitx                                               | package   
i | libfcitx-4_2_9                 | Shared libraries for fcitx                                                     | package   
i | typelib-1_0-Fcitx-1_0          | The Flexible Context-aware Input Tool with eXtension -- Introspection bindings | package
#2

I haven’t tried ibus in 42.2 as it was always so flaky in previous versions of openSUSE.
I have Japanese input working perfectly for me using fcitx / mozc
all I have installed is . . .

fcitx
fcitx-branding-opensuse
fcitx-config-gtk3
fcitx-config-gtk2
fcitx-mozc
fcitx-pinyin
fcitx-qt4
fcitx-qt5
fcitx-table
kf5-kcm-fcitx
kf5-kcm-fcitx-icons
libfcitx-4_2_9

if you just select fcitx in yast it will drag in all other dependencies (except mozc / fcitx-mozc which you will need to add in addition)(no need to add anthy - it is very old and hasn’t been updated in years)

in addition, you’ll need some Japanese fonts.
I’ve installed

ipa-ex-gothic-fonts
ipa-ex-mincho-fonts
vlgothic-fonts

After installing fcitx load it, then configure it to use mozc (you need to uncheck “only show current language”), and then set up a keyboard shortcut to enable / disable it.
After you’ve done that you need to log out of Plasma and then back in for it to take effect.

#3

https://paste.opensuse.org/view/raw/92655658

#4

すごい、ありがとうございます！

I didn’t know I have to press the hotkey to trigger fcitx. It could have worked in my previous config but I was looking for gui in notification area. Thank you for clarifying this as I had unworkable input before on leap 42.1 as I was trying to install stuff from other repos using guides.

#5

Thank you so much for this; it saved me a ton of time. I can validate that the same procedure works on Leap 42.3 and Tumbleweed.

For anyone who’s interested in a one-liner to install the right packages:


sudo zypper in fcitx fcitx-mozc ipa-ex-mincho-fonts ipa-ex-gothic-fonts vlgothic-fonts