Re: [tlug] Japanese Input on CentOS / KDE

[Dave Gutteridge <dave@example.com>]

Thank you for the advice and follow up.

The reason that Scott's web page confuses me, and why I'm still 
generally confused about Japanese input, are that every page, and each 
piece of advice I get on mailing lists seems to be talking about 
entirely different systems. There are all these methods, and layers to 
methods, such as iiimf, canna, wnn, kbx, xim, kterm, kinput... I'm not 
sure which does what, and each web page, including Scott's, seems to 
draw on only a few of them. This means that I go to one web page, it 
gives me a set of instructions, they don't work, so I look for another 
web page to try and see if I can find what went wrong, and the new web 
page leads me down an entirely different path. I feel like over the last 
three weeks of configuring my Linux desktop to use Japanese, I've never 
touched the same setting twice.

It also means that after fiddling with some setting, I ask on a mailing 
list about why it didn't work, and someone gives me an answer that 
probably works for their set up, but because they most likely followed a 
different route to get there, it doesn't seem to apply in my case. 
Surely it can't be that everyone has a completely different method of 
Japanese (or other languages) input, and yet it seems that way now.

Getting more specific to Scott's page. It does seem like the intention 
was to help people unfamiliar with Linux, like me, which is good. But, 
as mentioned, it's a little "breathless". There's a lot of information 
that is in a long continuous block of text that is hard to keep up with.
For example, right off the bat the web page starts out with "I'm 
assuming you have everything installed". Um... I'm not sure I do, and 
I'm not sure what "everything" is.
" Be sure that you are using a kterm rather than an xterm". I probably 
need to go hunting around on the net to find out what these are. I'm 
hoping to be able to switch to and from Japanese input within programs 
like Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice. Where and how kterm or xterm 
fit into that equation, I don't know, so this is losing me.
Anyway, I open up a terminal window and type:
[dave@example.com ~]$ kinput2 -canna &
[1] 4464
Okay, well that did something. What next?
[dave@example.com ~]$ export LC_ALL=ja_JP
[dave@example.com ~]$ export LANG=ja_JP.eucJP
[dave@example.com ~]$ export XMODIFIERS='@example.com=kinput2'

Alright, I hope I'm with you still. The commands don't return errors, 
but nothing has happened.
" Now, various applications will also work in Japanese" the web page says.

Okay, I start up Thunderbird. Start a new mail window. Press 
shift+space. No Japanese input there. Press ctrl+space. Nope, nothing. 
Hmm...
Okay, how about this?:
[dave@example.com ~]$ LANG=ja_JP.eucJP XMODIFIERS=@example.com=htt kedit
QInputContext: no input method context available
QInputContext: no input method context available

And now I have no idea what's going on. And I don't know what relevance, 
if any, all this variable switching has to the "input method switcher" 
on my panel which seems to be doing nothing.

I hope that explains why the web page confuses me.

If you can point out where I've gone wrong in this, I would be greatly 
appreciative.

Dave