Thanks Deano. You’ve given me a lot of hope that I might be very close to finally having this sorted out, but my total lack of experience with installing software from stand-alone packages like this means that I have to come back again with another question: is breaking a dependency through this method of installation not as bad as it sounds because the break has been accounted for in some way, and it’s extremely unlikely that any other packages will have the same dependency? Here’s what I get when I try to install:
stephen@home:~> sudo zypper install /home/stephen/tbin/fcitx5-mozc-3.33.6133.102-2.3.x86_64.rpm
[sudo] password for stephen:
'/home/stephen/tbin/fcitx5-mozc-3.33.6133.102-2.3.x86_64.rpm' looks like an RPM file. Will try to use it.
Refreshing service 'NVIDIA'.
Refreshing service 'openSUSE'.
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...
Problem: 1: nothing provides 'mozc = 3.33.6133.102' needed by the to be installed fcitx5-mozc-3.33.6133.102-2.3.x86_64
Solution 1: do not install fcitx5-mozc-3.33.6133.102-2.3.x86_64
Solution 2: break fcitx5-mozc-3.33.6133.102-2.3.x86_64 by ignoring some of its dependencies
Choose from above solutions by number or cancel [1/2/c/d/?] (c): c
Should it be okay to just go with option 2, or is there something else I should be trying to do?
No stop there. I was hoping the dependency chain would be short enough to make this viable, but unfortunately it isn’t. I’ll look into another way of getting fcitx5-mozc built for Leap 16.
Someone with an OBS/osc build environment could take the Factory mozc source and try building it against Leap 16.
osc checkout openSUSE:Factory/mozc
cd mozc
osc build --alternative-project openSUSE:Leap:16.0
@deano_ferrari Okay, thanks. I was expecting a “no don’t do it,” but I thought I should at least ask to make sure. I’m happy to wait for some good advice, rather than to just plough ahead and make a mess on my system. Thanks for your patience with helping me through this problem.
@ikanotheokara I take it you’re familiar with typing with Japanese Keyboards or Input Method Engines? If you know of any webpages that explain the basics of typing with Japanese layout keyboards, could you post links to them here please? I’m brand new to trying with a Japanese layout keyboard, and it took me days to even find out how to add a dakuten or a handakuten to something like a ホ, but I still haven’t figured out how to add a (han)dakuten without it also adding unnecessary white space. For example ヘ゜ーシ゛. Maybe the solution will become obvious when I can get fcitx5-mozc properly installed and (hopefully) I’ll be able to use my hankaku\kaku/kanji key as intended, but having a page I can look at just while I get the absolute basics down would probably be very helpful.
It sounds like you are using the Japanese (Kana) keyboard layout rather than an IME. It’s just a keyboard map, so it isn’t able to handle conversions. You need something like mozc or anthy for that.
anthy is pretty old and not as good at predicting as mozc, but if you can find fcitx5-anthy in the Leap 16 repository, you might try it. I see this person using fcitx5-skk in Leap 16.0 (albeit in GNOME), so that could be an option, but libskk lacks the predictive input features of mozc or anthy.
If you you can get an IME installed, you can remove the kana keyboard layout and just type in romaji and let mozc suggest conversions for you. For example ‘pe-zi’ becomes ‘ページ’, ‘kamereon’ becomes ‘カメレオン’ and ‘nihongonyuuryokusisutemu’ becomes ‘日本語入力システム.’
If you want to learn kana input, I might be able to point you to some tutorials, but after living in Japan for about 20 years, I have only met ONE person who still uses kana input. Everybody uses romaji input.
In an effort to assist further, I installed fcitx5-mozc on my Leap 16 environment. I actually used the Leap 16.1 package, and it pulled in a heap of Leap 16 packages as dependencies (I don’t otherwise use or have a need for fcitx).
sudo zypper in ~/Downloads/fcitx5-mozc-2.31.5810.102-bp161.1.1.x86_64.rpm
(You could also use curl if you know the exact package name.)
Anyway, that succeeded and I now have moxc available in my keyboard input methods to choose from.
FWIW, there is also a home project built for this… https://software.opensuse.org/package/fcitx5-mozc?search_term=fcitx5-mozc
I would only grab the single package rather than add the home repository. However, the “official” OSS Leap 16.1 package is probably preferable if it works on Leap 16, as it did in my case.
Man. That was a lot of faffing about, but at least it looks like I can finally switch to using Mozc when I need to.
After all this, I am definitely going to just keep it simple and stick to going with that first package you linked. Is there anything I need to look out for with regards to updates, though? This package doesn’t come from the main Leap 16 repo does it? So is there a chance that some future update from the main repository could cause something to break, or do I not need to worry about it? The only things I’ve ever installed from outside of the repositories are software/games from Steam, and compiling stuff like Apache, MySQL and PHP from source because I was still brand new to Linux and had not yet discovered the majesty of YaST’s Software Management section, so I have no idea what (if anything) is required to keep packages that have been brought in from outside the main repository happy.
I have absolutely no idea. The package Deano posted a link to above is working for me, so I’ll stick with that, but I’ll put that link you’ve posted in a text file, so that if the package I just installed begins to cause problems I can’t resolve, I’ll have an alternative to try out.
Now that I have Mozc installed, I see what you mean. The it’s like magic. When I first started looking into typing Japanese text, I thought I was going to have to get used to things like switching between writing systems and remembering to change character widths so that I wouldn’t end up up with strange looking text like
英人て゛す,
for example, but everything seems to be handled by magic.
Well, on one hand my assumption is that kana input means half the typing for the same output, but on the other hand ,I wasn’t really looking forward to learning which kana was on which key like a kid learning where each letter is on the keyboard. If you have links to pages/videos and you don’t have to go digging around to find them, I’d probably find them interesting and useful, but I feel like I’ve already taken up a lot of people’s time with this problem, so please don’t go rummaging around looking for old bookmarks or notes that you might have deleted. If you have them to hand, they’d be appreciated, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t.
Thanks to everyone for their time and patience with helping me get Fcitx5 and Mozc installed. It is greatly appreciated.
I you downloaded the .rpm and installed it, it will not update out of itself for that it needs to be linked to a repo.
That does not mean things will automatically keep working, if one of the dependent/underlaying packages changes for example it’s interface that could be things. I would not expect this to happen on Leap.
Glad to hear you got it sorted out! mozc is definitely the best option for Japanese IMEs on Linux.
It’s no trouble at all! The best free resource for learning kana typing is probably this website by Fujitsu:
It has quite a few lessons you can take to learn both kana and romaji typing.
If you’ve finished all the lessons at FM World and still want more Japanese typing practice, you can visit this site for daily typing challenges in romaji, English and kana typing:
But, in all honesty, if you are still learning Japanese or if you aren’t planning on typing in Japanese professionally, learning how to kana type is probably not worth the effort. Surveys show that only 5-10% of Japanese people use kana typing. It’s faster if you become proficient in it, but it takes a lot of effort to master.
A more valuable use of your time would be to learn flick typing on your phone. It’s very easy to learn and much faster than a QWERTY keyboard for typing in Japanese, especially one-handed.
