[tlug] Trouble with Japanese input on a new install

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

David J Iannucci writes:

 > I have a newly-installed Gentoo machine that has very similar hardware
 > and a similar configuration to another less-newly-installed one. On the
 > latter, Japanese input (with ibus) is working fine. On the former, I
 > can't do input in Firefox or Thunderbird, the two I need it most
 > for.

Can you do it in other applications?  Which ones?  How do you activate
it in those applications?

 > Funny thing is, I can see that ibus itself seems to be working
 > correctly, it's just that it won't "activate" when I focus input in
 > text fields in FF or TB.

Have you tried "unusual" (for you) ways to activate it?  On Gentoo, I
use Ctrl-SPC in FireFox, but that's SCIM+Anthy, not ibus, I think.

Some systems will respond to the Kanji key, others to the Henkan key,
yet others to the Hira/Kata key.

On my netbook Ubuntu system SCIM can be activated from the task bar.