Re: [tlug] Japanese Input on CentOS / KDE

[Dave Gutteridge <dave@example.com>]

Scott,

    I think it would be a shame to take this off-list, although I will 
of course do so if the list moderators or members in general say we 
definitely should. But surely it would be good to have this here so that 
in case someone else comes here looking for this info, you could just 
point them to this thread in the archives. I know I'd like to know it 
was in the archives in case I need to come back and retrace my steps.

    Anyway, thank you for helping me walk through this. And if you need 
any help with updating your web page about this to make it more visually 
friendly and newbie- accessible, I would love to help. I'm both an 
XHTML/CSS/Graphics wiz and a complete Linux newbie.

    To address your points directly -
    My objectives and Japanese level:
    I'm good enough with reading and writing Japanese that I could 
easily take on a Japanese OS environment. And I do at work. But at home 
I want my OS and it's menus and interface to be in English, where I feel 
nice and comfortable. I need the ability to input Japanese and switch 
back and forth at will. Essentially, and I hope I won't raise any issues 
by making this comparison, I'm looking for the same level of 
functionality that I had with the Global IME in Windows. The ability to 
turn on and off Japanese input at will in a variety of applications that 
support the feature, regardless of whether or not the application is 
itself Japanese.
    CentOS should be, as I'm sure you know better than me, equivelant to 
Red Hat Enterprise or Fedora, and I'm working within KDE, as I believed 
I mentioned. I'm led to believe that this set up can, in theory, do what 
I am looking for, so hopefully I'm not just thinking wishfully.

    The current set up:
    I think by now I have installed just about every type of Japanese 
input available to Linux, and a multitude of supporting services, 
variables, and options. When I first installed CentOS, I opted for 
Japanese support, although that never really meant anything. So I have 
this GUI for switching between languages and it seems to have advanced 
settings for choosing options. But I've noticed that whenever you ask a 
Linux guru anything about anything, they tell you how to do it at the 
command prompt. So here goes:
[root@example.com dave]# udatedb
bash: udatedb: command not found
[root@example.com dave]# /usr/bin/updatedb
[root@example.com dave]# which scim
/usr/bin/which: no scim in 
(/usr/kerberos/sbin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games:/home/dave/bin)
[root@example.com dave]# locate anthy | more
[root@example.com dave]# locate scim-anthy.  | more
[root@example.com dave]# locale -a | grep ja_JP
ja_JP
ja_JP.eucjp
ja_JP.ujis
ja_JP.utf8

I hope that this sheds some light on what's going on with my current 
system. I look forward to any advice that may come of this information.

Thanks

Dave