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User Guide for the Input Method on Debian Buster.

Since current Debian default Desktop install uses Gnome wayland, this page focus on Gnome wayland.

(Please limit content to the basics. If you have detailed and specific topics, please create other pages and link them from this page.)

Input Method Frameworks

There are 4 popular input method (IM) frameworks;

Input method framework

Note

ibus

Default for Gnome

uim

Popular with Japanese (emacs friendly)

fcitx

Popular with Chinese

scim

Preferred by KDE(?)

The im-config package helps to install and to manage all these IMs on one system.

It is usually simpler to use only one IM on a system.

For default Debian desktop system, please consider to install ibus unless you have specific reasons not to do so. Gnome upstream integrates ibus to the Gnome desktop to support input methods.

Input Method Engines for ibus

For ibus, the installation of their associated Input Method Engine (IME) support packages pulls in all the common IME packages.

Language

IME support package

Note

Chinese (cn)

ibus-pinyin

Chinese Pinyin input (cn, deprecated)

Chinese (cn)

ibus-libpinyin

Chinese Pinyin input (cn)

Chinese (tw)

ibus-zhuyin

Chinese zhuyin input (tw)

Chinese (tw)

ibus-libzhuyin

Chinese zhuyin input (tw)

Chinese (tw)

ibus-cangjie

Chinese cangjie input (tw)

Chinese

ibus-rime

Rime engine with configurable multiple schema (cn & tw)

Japanese

ibus-mozc

Multi-phrase conversion (architecture limited to popular platforms)

Japanese

ibus-anthy

Multi-phrase conversion (recently, somewhat buggy)

Japanese

ibus-skk

Simple conversion (emacs)

Japanese

ibus-kkc

Simple multi-phrase conversion (newer, skk-like)

Korean

ibus-hangul

Korean hangul input

Vietnamese

ibus-unikey

Vietnamese input

Thai

ibus-libthai

Thai input

Gnome and ibus

The current Gnome (3.30 for Buster) integrates ibus.

How to activate IME

Just installing IME such as ibus-mozc doesn't activate them. Please make sure to activate each IME via Gnome "Settings" --> "Region & Languages" --> "Input Sources".

You can select keyboard input source to any IME engine from this dialog.

How to change IME to a deterministic selection

The default method to switch among keyboard input sources is Super-SPACE. But this rotates among all keyboard input sources.

If you want a deterministic key binding, add such key binding with the GNOME Configuration panel: Device -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> click "+" at the bottom and start SetCustomShortcut dialog.

Please enter as follows in one line into command to start the top-most (0-th) input source IME:

gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/gnome/Shell --method org.gnome.Shell.Eval  "imports.ui.status.keyboard.getInputSourceManager().inputSources[0].activate()"

Please enter as follows in one line into command to start the following (1-st) input source IME:

gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/gnome/Shell --method org.gnome.Shell.Eval  "imports.ui.status.keyboard.getInputSourceManager().inputSources[1].activate()"

Gnome and non-ibus

The current Gnome (3.30 for Buster) integrates ibus. The ibus needs to be removed (or fake to be removed) from the system to enable other IMs with im-config hook scripts.

For each platform, please see the linked pages on each input method below:

How to fake ibus to be removed

If you rename /usr/bin/ibus-daemon to /usr/bin/ibus-daemon.distrib as root, you can convince Gnome system that there is no ibus package.

More robust method to disable ibus for Gnome:

 $ sudo dpkg-divert --package im-config --rename /usr/bin/ibus-daemon
Adding 'diversion of /usr/bin/ibus-daemon to /usr/bin/ibus-daemon.distrib by im-config'

More robust method to re-enable ibus for Gnome:

 $ sudo dpkg-divert --package im-config --rename --remove /usr/bin/ibus-daemon
Removing 'diversion of /usr/bin/ibus-daemon to /usr/bin/ibus-daemon.distrib by im-config'

non-Gnome Desktop and IM

Currently, all functioning non-Gnome Desktop uses X11 (not wayland). You should be able to configure IM with im-config.

For each Desktop, please see the linked pages on each desktop below:

See also