[tlug] Workaround for Japanese IM in RH 8. Plus: is MS style localization the best we can do?

[David Riggs <dariggs@example.com>]

Thank you TLUG and especially the patience and knowledge of David 
Oftedal: now I can get Japanese into my web searches and my spreadsheet! 
Below is my newbie level instructions to resolve the problem, along with 
my newbie level comments, and request for additional help.


Problem: In RH 8, installed with English as main, Japanese+Chinese as 
secondary languages, specifying a  graphical login: Japanese input is 
not available (shift-space does not trigger it), but Japanese is visible 
on web pages, and already created documents. No amount of work with the 
Gnome desktop settings and application settings in Mozilla or 
OpenOffice, nor starting up with Japanese as the primary language for 
this session will enable Japanese input. The Japanese server 
(cannaserver) is running, but the front end (kinput2) is not.

Workaround:
Start kinput2 yourself, and then start each Gnome program with the 
proper Japanese language environment variables. From a terminal (i.e. 
System Tools/Terminal will bring up a command line terminal):

kinput2 -canna &

Then to start e.g. mozilla:

XMODIFIERS=@example.com=kinput2 LANGUAGE=ja_JP LC_CTYPE=ja_JP LC_ALL=ja_JP mozilla &

Notes: be sure to put the & to put the process in the background, so the 
terminal will come back for more input. The progam is started on the 
same line with the setting: doing the settings first, then starting apps 
does not work. Other applications need to be started with their real 
names: e.g. oowriter, oocalc for OpenOffice.org Writer and Calc 
(spreadsheet).

Discussion: This is OK, but I cannot find a way to make this the 
default; I have to start each program manually, not from Gnome. There 
should be a .xinitrc file in my home directory, I think, but there was 
not, and when I created one with those parameters as above, it was 
ignored. Is this due to my specifying that I want a graphical login?

Quite separately, this setting means that OpenOffice comes up with 
Japanese menus and help. That is not what I want: I want my familiar 
English menus, with the ability to add an occasional Japanese word. I 
want multi-lingual, not localization (ala Microsoft). Mozilla, on the 
other hand keeps most of its English menus.

Help:

 1. How do I set something like .xinitrc so I can start programs more 
easily. David says this is a bit out of his area, so I appeal to the list.

2. Is this the only way to get Japanese into most Gnome application? 
Must I sacrifice my English menus for an occasional word in Japanese? (I 
use Emacs for many things, but I do need some of the other apps!) I was 
hoping that Linux apps would make this easier.

Thanks for any advice.

David

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